New Books

April 2004

FICTION

American Gods - Gaiman, Neil

American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old Norse god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellow gods in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and their road offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow. Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of America--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. - Amazon.com

The Last Juror - Grisham, John

In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began. - from the publisher

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood - Brashares, Ann

The four friends of the delightful Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants are back for another summer of friendship, family, fun, and love with the magic pair of shopworn jeans. The pants travel with Bridget to Alabama, where she reestablishes a bond with her maternal grandmother; then they go with Tibby to a special summer program at Williamston College. The pants are with Lena at home during her on-again, off-again relationship with Kostos, and they are with Carmen as she tries to navigate her own and her mother's love lives. But this year the pants preside over a sadder, more tumultuous summer, as all four girls mature and realize that love and family are far more difficult to sustain than they had thought. Brashares has done an outstanding job of showing the four teens growing up and giving readers a happy, ultimately hopeful book, easy to read and gentle in its important lessons. Readers will want at least one more summer of the sisterhood of the traveling pants. - Booklist

The Cunning Man - Davies, Robertson

It is always a pleasure to read works that manage to be both entertaining and intelligent. Throughout his long career, Canadian novelist Davies has successfully combined these two elements. His latest protagonist, Dr. Jonathan Hullah, is a holistic physician-a cunning diagnostician who is often able to get to the root of problems that have baffled others. A young reporter's query about the circumstances surrounding an Episcopalian priest's death at the high altar on Good Friday leads the doctor to reflect on his own life and career. While the issues addressed are those that have long preoccupied Davies-the nature of friendship, religion, faith, and artistic life-the approach is anything but pompous and dry. Davies's characterizations are rich (and just a bit quirky) and his commentary filled with. One of those rare novels that can be wholeheartedly recommended for libraries of every type and size, including high schools. - Library Journal

Empire Falls - Russo, Richard

In a warmhearted novel of sweeping scope, Russo animates the dead-end small town of Empire Falls, Maine, long abandoned by the logging and textile industries that provided its citizens with their livelihood. Miles Roby surveys his hometown with bemused regret from the Empire Grill, owned by a local magnate but run by him ever since he was called home from college to take care of his ailing mother. His daily parade of customers provides him with ample evidence of both the restrictions and forced intimacy of small-town life and has left him with a deep appreciation for irony: his ex-wife's new paramour, "the Silver Fox," has suddenly become a loyal customer and is constantly challenging him to an arm-wrestling contest; his father, always a day late and a dollar short, has talked a senile priest into running off to Key West for the winter (where they tie for first place in the local Hemingway look-alike contest); and the diner owner's daughter, apprised of Miles' impending divorce, is forever trying to engulf him in a teary embrace. Russo shows an unerring sense of the rhythms of small-town life, balancing his irreverent, mocking humor with unending empathy for his characters and their foibles. - Booklist

Wonder When You'll Miss Me - Davis, Amanda

Davis' stunning first novel expands a short story from her collection Circling the Drain (1999). Lonely for her dead father, an outcast at her high school, Faith Duckle has only one confidant: the Fat Girl, a grotesquely distorted version of Faith as she was before a sexual assault drove her to attempt suicide. The Fat Girl follows Faith everywhere, consoling her, counseling her, and relentlessly urging her to exact vengeance on the popular boys who hurt her. Faith gives in and attacks one of them after school, and then she and the Fat Girl run away to join the circus. Davis is expert at rendering the small cruelties of life in Faith's bleak hometown, juxtaposing them with the frayed grandeur and scrappy glamour of the circus, where she eventually comes to terms with herself. This is an astonishing debut: dark, disturbing, and fiercely openhearted. - Booklist

The Wife - Wolitzer, Meg

A tall, fair, "slender, hygienic Smith girl," Joan, author of high-caliber short stories, marries her creative-writing professor. They move to New York, Joe starts writing, and Joan secures a job at the publisher that publishes the novel that jump-starts Joe's stellar career. Joan then quits her job to devote herself to husband and children, holding steady against the turbulence of Joe's unremitting self-absorption and conspicuous philandering. Forty years later, Joe wins the much-coveted Helsinki Award, and Joan decides that she's had enough of their smothering marriage and its scandalous secret. That's the foundation for what becomes a diabolically smart and funny assault against the literary establishment and the tacit assumption that only men can write the Great American Novel. As Joan recounts the misery she and her fellow writers' wives endure, popular and shrewd novelist Wolitzer choreographs her ire into kung-fu precision moves to zap our every notion about gender and status, creativity and fame, individuality and marriage, deftly exposing the injustice, sorrow, and sheer absurdity of it all. - Booklist

Just an Ordinary Day - Jackson, Shirley

From the hilarious first story in this treat of a collection, in which a college girl tricks the devil (horns, hoofs and all) into selling her his soul, we know we are in Jackson territory-the Jackson of the classic short story "The Lottery" and the novel The Haunting of Hill House. For Jackson devotees, as well as first-time readers, this is a feast: more than half of the 54 short stories collected here have never been published before. The circumstances that inspired the volume are appropriately bizarre. According to Jackson's children, "a carton of cobwebbed files discovered in a Vermont barn" arrived in the mail one day without notice; along with the original manuscript of her novel, the box contained six unpublished stories. Other pieces, culled from family collections, and from archives and papers at the San Francisco Public Library and the Library of Congress, appeared in print only once, in various magazines. The stories are diverse: there are tales that pillory smug, self-satisfied, small-town ladies; chilling and murderous chronicles of marriage; witty romantic comedies; and tales that reveal an eerie juxtaposition of good and evil. The devil, who can't seem to get an even break, makes several appearances A few pieces that qualify as humorous takes on the predicaments of modern life add a relaxed, biographical element to a virtuoso collection. - Publishers Weekly

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus - Card, Orson Scott

In the 23rd Century, a trio of time travelers journey back to the 15th Century in order to prevent Christopher Columbus from colonizing America. The trip is part of a project by an organization to change history, thereby improving life on earth. By the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Ender's Game.

Middlesex - Eugenides, Jeffrey

Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Jeffrey Eugenides kept a fairly low profile after his first novel, The Virgin Suicides, caused a stir in 1993. With Middlesex, a sprawling yet intimate novel that earns the turning of every one of its 500-plus pages, he proves that the time was very well spent. Raised as a girl by her second-generation Greek-American family, Calliope (now Cal) Stephanides is physiologically a hermaphrodite and is more male than female. That's not giving away much -- Cal explains it on the first page. What's remarkable is that a book can start with such a revelation and still manage to be full of surprises. Narrated by Cal, the story also shares the thoughts, feelings, and intimate details of the lives of Cal's grandparents, parents, and other family members. In this omniscient first-person mode, we get an epic family saga, a journey from 1920s Greece to 1960s Detroit to contemporary Europe -- one that leads to a remarkably satisfying conclusion. - Barnes and Noble

The Guardian - Sparks, Nicholas

The #1 New York Times bestselling author explores a darker realm of the heart in an explosive and emotional tale of love and obsession. At 29, Julie Barenson is too young to give up on love. Four years after her husband's tragic death, she is finally ready to risk giving her heart to someone again. But to whom? Should it be Richard Franklin, who is handsome and sophisticated and treats her like a queen, or Mike Harris, who is Julie's best friend in the world, though not as debonair? Now, with a decision that should bring her more happiness than she's had in years, Julie's life is about to become a living nightmare, as one man's jealousy spins into a deadly obsession. - from the publisher

Interview with the Vampire - Rice, Anne

In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator. While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels, Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. - Amazon.com

Sensei - Donohue, John

Every good martial-arts student knows that "you don't talk back. You don't ask rude questions. You don't cop an attitude-that's the sensei's prerogative." The sensei, or teacher, in this case is the iconic Yamashita, master warrior. The student is Connor Burke, who's been at it-the demanding, humbling process of martial-arts training-long enough to acquire extraordinary competence. He's going to need it, because things are about to get hairy indeed around Yamashita's dojo. In California, a famous karate teacher is found dead; a short time later, there's a second martial-arts-related death, and then a third, this time in New York. In each case, the killer leaves his bloody signature behind: Ronin, Japanese for a gunslinger with a grudge. Connor and his brother Mick, an NYPD homicide detective, become convinced that the object of Ronin's antipathy is none other than Yamashita, and that the killings are a deranged and convoluted way of stalking him. They're right. "From hurt to hate is a small step," the sensei acknowledges. He understands that the blow he long ago inflicted reluctantly on a supersensitive ego was severe and that the immeasurably talented Ronin craves payback. But no one realizes until it's almost too late the complexity of Ronin's revenge strategy, and the lethal role it includes for Connor. Strong story, good writing, colorful setting. Donohue, who has black belts in karate and kendo, has published extensively on the marital arts, but this is his fiction debut, and an impressive one it is. - Kirkus

A Deepness in the Sky - Vinge, Vernor

A richly textured hard-SF novel that combines adept characterization with action and insight into alien civilizations, Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is a provocative portrayal of an outlandish world on the edge of great advancement that must stave off civil war and exploitation from other planets. The highly charged novel is a complex and involving examination of human expansion into distant galaxies. Here the balance between trade, corruption, and deliberate destruction is blurred as three separate societies come into fiery contact. - Barnes and Noble

The Tea Rose - Donnelly, Jennifer

In 1888, Fiona Finnegan and Joe Bristow hoard shillings and pennies so that they can marry and open a shop. But Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of London's East End, and poverty threatens from the shadows. Setting the story in motion is the murder of Fiona's father, a dock worker whose union activities angered his tea-company boss. Fiona and her younger brother must flee to New York City to avoid their own murders. Through hard work and luck, Fiona and her beloved Joe prosper on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Misunderstandings and mistakes keep them apart as they build separate lives and incredible fortunes. Donnelly effortlessly takes her narrative through slums and high society while intertwining a number of subplots without tangling them. Both major and minor characters capture and hold interest and sympathy. - Library Journal

O. Henry Prize Stories 2003 - Furman, Laura

A new, wider-ranging selection process (allowing the consideration of all English-language writers appearing in North American publications regardless of citizenship) makes this one of the strongest O. Henry collections in recent years. , with stories by, among others, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ("The American Embassy"), A.S. Byatt ("The Thing in the Forest") and William Trevor ("Sacred Statues"). Other standouts include Anthony Doerr's "The Shell Collector," which details the daily rituals of a blind shell gatherer; Bradford Morrow's "Lush," the tale of an alcoholic husband forced to confront the possibility of redemption after the loss of his equally addicted wife; and the enchantingly bucolic "Swept Away" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, in which a strange set of circumstances brings together a grizzled Scotsman and a demure American birdwatcher. Ann Harleman incorporates crossword puzzles and e-mails into "Meanwhile," a story about the pressures of attending to a chronically ill spouse, while Evan S. Connell's delightfully clever "Election Eve" juxtaposes marital and political conflict against the backdrop of a pre-election masquerade party. Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams," which could arguably be classified as a novella, is a sweeping, dreamlike portrait of the American west as seen through the eyes of a man who has lost his wife and young daughter in a fire. An extra bonus is an appendix in which the 2003 jurors (Jennifer Egan, David Guterson and Diane Johnson) weigh in on their top choices. This is a collection of literary gems that would surely please the man for whom the prize is named. - Publisher's Weekly

Calculating God - Sawyer, Robert J.

An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist." It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time (one example of these "cataclysmic events" would be the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs). Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been playing with the evolution of life on each of these planets. From this provocative launch point, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, and morally and intellectually challenging, SF story that just grows larger and larger in scope. The evidence of God's universal existence is not universally well received on Earth, nor even immediately believed. And it reveals nothing of God's nature. In fact. it poses more questions than it answers. - from the publisher

Freedom's Landing - McCaffrey, Anne

With this book, McCaffrey opens an exciting and totally convincing new universe far removed from the worlds of the dragonriders, the Rowan, the crystal singer, and the ship-brawn partnerships with which her readers are happily familiar. The Catteni, an alien race of slavers, are settling a habitable but dangerous planet with recalcitrant slaves from a variety of races, including the human; all must learn to cooperate with one another to survive. Among the conscripted colonists is an exiled Catteni noble, Zainal, who is resented by some other colonists because he is a member of the overlord race, and Kristin Bjornsen, a spirited young human who finds herself not only working closely with Zainal but drawn to him romantically. - Booklist

Damia - McCaffrey, Anne

In this second volume of the trilogy begun with The Rowan , McCaffrey introduces Damia Raven, brilliant and willful daughter of Angharad Gwyn (the Rowan) and Jeff Raven, leaders of the psionic Talents of Federal Telepath & Teleport, who make interstellar commerce possible. McCaffrey interweaves an engrossing romance with a coming-of-age story as she examines the issue of responsibility in a society where survival depends on the abilities of a gifted few. - Publishers Weekly

Damia's Children - McCaffrey, Anne

This is the third book in the Raven-Lyons family saga. In The Rowan, McCaffrey developed FT&T, Federal Telepath and Teleport. This organization, through the use of psi talents, is responsible for interstellar communication via telepathy, and for cargo/passenger transportation by means of teleportation. While the first book tells Rowan's story, and the second centers (Damia) around the daughter of Rowan and Jeff Raven, Damia's Children concerns the eight children of Damia and Afra, especially Laria, Thian, and Rojer who, working with their alien allies the Mrdinis, again confront the Hive culture. The author has created memorable, strong characters who are believable and well fleshed out. This is McCaffrey at her best. - School Library Journal

Guardians of the West (book 1 of the Mallorean) - Eddings, David

Garion had slain the evil God Torak and had been crowned King of Riva. The Prophecy was fulfilled--or so it seemed. And then again, Garion found himself a pawn, caught between the two ancient Prophecies, with the fate of the world somehow resting on him. - Ingram

King of the Murgos (book 2 of the Mallorean) - Eddings, David

Eddings continues to provide solid fantasy entertainment featuring engaging characters and warm, wry humor in this sequel to Guardians of the West. As the words of the Prophecy lead the Rivan King Garion and his companions across the lands of the Snake-Queen and the once hostile Murgos, the malignant Zandramas, kidnapper of Garion's son, pursues another Prophecy which, if fulfilled, will lead to the triumph of Darkness. - Library Journal

Demon Lord of Karanda (book 3 of the Mallorean) - Eddings, David

The trial of the sorceress Zandramas leads Garion and his companions into the heart of enemy territory where a cult of demon worshipers forces an unlikely alliance between the forces of Light and Darkness. Eddings uses gentle humor and endearing characters to temper the seriousness of his complex fantasy epic. - Library Journal

Two volumes of plays by one of America's most popular playwrights:

The Collected Plays of Neil Simon: Volume I - Simon, Neil

Come blow your horn -- Barefoot in the park -- The odd couple -- The star-spangled girl -- Promises, promises -- Plaza suite -- Last of the red hot lovers.

The Collected Plays of Neil Simon: Volume II - Simon, Neil

Little me.--The gingerbread lady.--The prisoner of Second Avenue.--The sunshine boys.--The good doctor.--God's favorite.--California suite.--Chapter two.

Plays for Actresses - Shengold, Nina

The varied themes, styles, and dramatic forms of these seven full-length plays and ten one-acts offer rich, diverse, all-female roles for audition or production by high school dramatic clubs, college acting classes, or professional and civic theater groups. Casts range from one to six actresses. Most of the plays were written in the 1980s and 1990s and have been produced in Off-Broadway and regional theaters. - Library Journal

Contents: Three tall women / Edward Albee -- Independence / Lee Blessing -- Beautiful bodies / Laura Cunningham -- Bedtime / Mary Gallagher -- The most massive woman wins / Madeleine George -- Tea / Velina Hasu Houston -- Appearances / Tina Howe -- David's redhaired death / Sherry Kramer -- Catholic school girls / Casey Kurtti -- Waterbabies / Adam LeFevre -- Credo / Craig Lucas -- Poof! / Lynn Nottage -- The winged man / José Rivera -- Lives of the great waitresses / Nina Shengold -- Desdemont : a play about a handkerchief / Paula Vogel -- Workout / Wendy Wasserstein -- The role of Della / John J. Wooten.

World Literature

Season of Migration to the North - Salih, Tayeb

One of the classic themes followed in this complex novel, translated from the Arabic, is cultural dissonance between East and West, particularly the experience of a returned native. The narrator returns from his studies in England to his remote little village in Sudan, to begin his career as an educator. There he encounters Mustafa, a fascinating man of mystery, who also has studied at Oxford. As their relationship builds on this commonality, Mustafa reveals his past. A series of compulsive liaisons with English women have ended in disaster. Charged with the passion killing of his last paramour, Mustafa was acquitted by the English courts. As he unravels his complicated and gory story, Mustafa charges the listener with the custody of his present life. When Mustafa disappears, apparently drowned in the Nile and perhaps a suicide, another door in his secretive life opens to include his wife and children. Emerging from a constantly evolving narrative, in a trance-like telling, is the clash between an assumed worldly sophistication and enduring, dark, elemental forces. An arresting work by a major Arab novelist who mines the rich lode of African experience with the Western world. - Publisher's Weekly

The Famished Road - Okri, Ben

You have never read a novel like this one. Winner of the 1991 Booker Prize for fiction, The Famished Road tells the story of Azaro, a spirit-child. Though spirit-children rarely stay long in the painful world of the living, when Azaro is born he chooses to fight death: "I wanted," he says, "to make happy the bruised face of the woman who would become my mother." Survival in his chaotic African village is a struggle, though. Azaro and his family must contend with hunger, disease, and violence, as well as the boy's spirit-companions, who are constantly trying to trick him back into their world. Okri fills his tale with unforgettable images and characters. At the heart of this hypnotic novel are the mysteries of love and human survival. "It is more difficult to love than to die," says Azaro's father, and indeed, it is love that brings real sharpness to suffering here. As the story moves toward its climax, Azaro must face the consequences of choosing to live, of choosing to walk the road of hunger rather than return to the benign land of spirits. The Famished Road is worth reading for its last line alone, which must be one of the most devastating endings in contemporary literature (but don't skip ahead). - Amazon.com

Thousand Cranes - Kawabata, Yasunari

With a restraint that barely conceals the ferocity of his characters' passions, one of Japan's great postwar novelists tells the luminous story of Kikuji and the tea party he attends with Mrs. Ota, the rival of his dead father's mistress. A tale of desire, regret, and sensual nostalgia, every gesture has a meaning, and even the most fleeting touch or casual utterance has the power to illuminate entire lives--sometimes in the same moment that it destroys them. - from the publisher

Wild Thorns - Khalifeh, Sahar

An earnest Arabic novel, first published in 1976, that dramatizes the reactions of Palestinian nationalists to Israeli occupation of the West Bank, an action that has turned many of their countrymen into nomads dutifully commuting to alien territory to work. Khalifeh's initial focus on Usama, a young Palestinian returned home to find his relatives compromised in this way, yields to more diffused depictions of several other characters with whom he finds himself conspiring to blow up buses transporting day-workers. The conspiracy raises havoc with the story's formal unity but does enable it to portray credibly a troubling spectrum of extreme responses to disenfranchisement. - Kirkus

Arabian Nights and Days - Mahfouz, Naguib

Anyone with suspicions about the fairy tale tag "They lived happily ever after" will have them confirmed here. The latest translation of Mahfouz (winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature) is a clever, witty concoction that begins on the day following the Thousand and One Nights, when the vizier Dandan learns that his daughter, Shahrzad, has succeeded in saving her life by enthralling the sultan with wondrous tales. But Shahrzad is miserable and distrusts her husband, who, she suspects, is still capable of bloody doings. All is not well outside the palace either, where a medieval Islamic city teems with anxious souls. Many of them, like the devout Skeikh Abdullah al-Balkhi, strive to attain a high spiritual station, but few succeed, especially when genies and angels intervene, as they do often in this series of linked intrigues and adventures. Mahfouz succeeds splendidly with this fantasy, which should appeal to a wide readership. - Library Journal

Snow Country - Kawabata, Yasunari

To this haunting novel of wasted love, Kawabata brings the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. As he chronicles the affair between a wealthy dilettante and the mountain geisha who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets, one of Japan's greatest writers creates a work that is dense in implication and exalting in its sadness. - from the publisher

Life and Times of Michael K - Coetzee, J. M.

First published in 1983 and winner of the Booker Prize. Set in a turbulent South Africa, a young gardener decides to take his mother away from the violence towards a new life in the abandoned countryside, but finds that war follows wherever he goes. - from the publisher

Waiting for the Barbarians - Coetzee, J. M.

For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire, whose servant he is. But when the interrogation experts arrive, he is jolted into sympathy with the victims and into a quixotic act of rebellion which lands him in prison, branded as an enemy of the state. Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegory of oppressor and oppressed. Not just a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times, the Magistrate is an analogue of all men living in complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency. - from the publisher

The Map of Love - Soueif, Ahdaf

Coincidence - personal, political and cultural - rules in this burnished, ultra-romantic Booker Prize finalist. In 1997, Isabel Parkman, a recently divorced American journalist, travels to Egypt to research about the impending millennium. But her interest in Egypt has more to do with her crush on Omar al-Ghamrawi, a passionate and difficult older Egyptian-American conductor and political writer, than with her work. Once in Egypt, Isabel neglects her project for a more personal investigation. Lugging with her a mysterious trunk of papers bequeathed to her by her mother, Isabel turns up at Omar's sister Amal's house in Cairo and explains that Omar had said she might be interested in translating the papers. As the two soon discover, Isabel is Amal's distant cousin, and the papers belonged to their mutual great-grandmother, Anna Winterbourne. As a young English widow, Anna traveled to turn-of-the-century Egypt, then an English colony, and fell in love with an Egyptian man. "I cannot help thinking that when she chose to step off the well-trodden paths of expatriate life, Anna must have secretly wanted something out of the ordinary to happen to her," muses Amal, who begins to realize that the same applies to her own life. Soueif (In the Eye of the Sun) writes simply and, on occasion, beautifully. Anna's journal entries are particularly evocative. Sticklers for narrative detail might chafe at the number of incredible coincidences and forsaken plot devices (Isabel's millennium project is never mentioned after her arrival in Egypt). On balance, however, Soueif weaves the stories of three formidable women from vastly different times and countries into a single absorbing tale. - Booklist

Palace of Desire - Mahfouz, Naguib

In this second volume of Nobel laureate Mahfouz's "Cairo trilogy", a tyrannical father discovers that his mistress has secretly married his just-divorced son. "A masterpiece, albeit a wordy, very leisurely one, this family saga is well served by a scintillating translation that exposes English-language readers to an Egyptian Balzac," said Publisher's Weekly.

The CDS Library owns the entire trilogy: the first novel is Palace Walk. The third is Sugar Street.

Sugar Street - Mahfouz, Naguib

The final volume in Nobel laureate Mahfouz's magisterial Cairo trilogy takes the Abd al-Jawad family from a rising tide of nationalist sentiment in 1935 through the darkness and confusion of WW II, as Britain defends an Egypt officially neutral. Yet national politics, for all its importance as background accompaniment here (as in Palace Walk and Palace of Desire), is usually kept just offstage--``They say that Hitler has attacked,'' old family servant Umm Hanafi announces halfway through. Individual episodes--Ahmad Abd al- Jawad's hazy awareness that his friends are all dying; Kamal's abortive romance with Budur Shaddad, sister of his far-distant first love Aida; and his final tormented guilt over his moral paralysis--show Naguib's Tolstoyan economy at its most dramatic, though the third generation of his family makes a more muted impression than the first two. Mahfouz writes in the great tradition of the 19th-century novel from Balzac to Buddenbrooks. His trilogy shows just how rich and vital that tradition remains in the hands of a master. - Kirkus

Paradise of the Blind - Huong, Duong Thu

Huong's exquisite book, banned in her own country, introduces readers to daily life in Vietnam under Communist rule in the 1970s. Readers will be captivated by this story of a young girl growing into womanhood under a regime that negates many of the people's old values and customs and tears families apart. Hang grows up seeking the name of her father and the circumstances of his disappearance and death. Concomitantly, her mother becomes more and more desperate and distant in her struggle to earn a living as a street snack seller, a job decried by Uncle Chinh, a loyal Communist, as reminiscent of old capitalist ways. Her mother is also tied to another remnant of the past; she will sacrifice health, food, and her own self-respect to cater to Chinh's needs and expects her daughter to do the same. As a young adult, Hang is sent to work in Russia, and the author describes that country with equal skill. The book captures the enormous beauty and sensory delights of this unique land, as well as the degradation and grim realities of the post-civil-war period. The translator's notes guide readers through the politics. - School Library Journal

Pillars of Salt - Faqir, Fadia

This skillfully constructed novel, the second from an acclaimed Jordanian writer, portrays the vulnerability of women in an embattled traditional culture through the stories exchanged by two patients in a mental hospital. One has obediently surrendered to her husband's choice of a younger wife, the other has seen her marriage fall victim to political violence. The histories of Maha and Um Saad, which typify Jordanian experience during the British Mandate that lasted through much of the 1940s, are framed and echoed by the comments of ``The Storyteller,'' who relates them to us in a dazzling and often very moving display of narrative art. - Kirkus

Dictionary of the Khazars - Pavic, Milorad

Dictionary of the Khazars was cited by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of the year. Written in two versions, male and female (both available in Vintage International), which are identical save for seventeen crucial lines, Dictionary is the imaginary book of knowledge of the Khazars, a people who flourished somewhere beyond Transylvania between the seventh and ninth centuries. Eschewing conventional narrative and plot, this lexicon novel combines the dictionaries of the world's three major religions with entries that leap between past and future, featuring three unruly wise men, a book printed in poison ink, suicide by mirrors, a chimerical princess, a sect of priests who can infiltrate one's dreams, romances between the living and the dead, and much more. - from the publisher

The New Life - Pamuk, Orhan

In his native Turkey, author Orhan Pamuk's novel The New Life is a huge hit. Now English-language readers have an opportunity to sample this unusual book for themselves. The New Life begins with the sentence "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed." That book leads the narrator, a young man named Osman, on a wild journey in the company of Janan, a mysterious young woman in search of her lover, Mehmet. He had actually managed to enter--and escape--the world of the book. In the course of their travels, Osman and Janan are involved in a bloody bus wreck from which they emerge with new identities; they meet several "false" Mehmets; Janan mysteriously vanishes; and Osman eventually encounters a family friend who may or may not be the author of the life-changing book and possibly of The New Life itself. In case you hadn't already guessed, The New Life is strictly postmodernist fare, where plot and character are minimal and time and space tend to bend and warp in unexpected ways. The author's vision is certainly original, his descriptions of violence and Turkish culture particularly strong. - Amazon.com

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - Oe, Kenzaburo

Oe, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, was just 23 in 1958, when he published this wrenching first novel in Japan. In the waning days of WWII, a group of Japanese reform-school boys are evacuated to a remote village in a densely wooded valley. Believing the boys to be infected with a plague stalking the area, the villagers remove themselves to the other side of the valley and block the only road out of town. At first, the boys can think only of escape, but then, like the boys in Lord of the Flies, they start to make the village their own: they bury the dead and perform a sort of sacrament; they care for an abandoned, infirm girl; they hold a hunting festival to ensure continued abundance. The narrator becomes the girl's lover; his younger brother adopts a stray pup; an unexpected snowfall sparks a midwinter celebration. But each pleasant turn, every apparently liberating step away from unremitting brutality, serves to make the characters' inevitable future suffering even more painful. The end arrives with the suddenness and fury of a tornado, as disease and war catch up to the boys. Oe is considered by many to be Japan's greatest postwar novelist. It's easy to see why. Here, his writing is crisp and lovely and gruesomely perfect. - Publisher's Weekly

Novel Without a Name - Huong, Duong Thu

A compelling novel about the horror and waste of the Vietnam War--from the North Vietnamese point of view. The central character is Quan. At the age of 28, he's already a 10-year combat veteran. Like his fellow soldiers, Quan is so exhausted in body and mind that he yearns for death, even as he dreads it. Quan returns to his home village to investigate reports that an old friend has gone insane, and here he becomes aware of the war's other costs. The villagers are dispirited, because nearly everyone has lost a loved one. Poverty has blossomed. And the Communist hierarchy, once revered, is now viewed as corrupt and hypocritical. Huong (author of Paradise of the Blind, 1993) has a keen eye and a fine voice, which fearlessly reveals the anguish of a human heart searching for humanity. Banned in Viet Nam. - Booklist

Dusk - Jose, F. Sionil

Tapping a mostly unknown chapter in American history, Jose, one of the Philippines' most prominent authors, has created a vivid chronicle of Filipino life on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Set in the deep Filipino countryside in an area penetrated only by the Catholic church, the novel charts the fortunes of Istak, a member of the Ilokono tribe who trained as an acolyte under a kind priest. Able to speak Spanish and Latin and more comfortable writing than farming, Istak finds himself distanced from his family's simple village life. Driven off their land, Istak's family is beset on all sides, traveling across unknown territory and under attack by other tribes and Spanish soldiers. Istak's emerging political awareness coincides with the invasion of the Philippines by American forces, and he finds that his educated status obliges him to play a role in this conflict as well. - Publisher's Weekly

The Innocence of the Devil - El Saadawi, Nawal

Nawal El Saadawi's books are known for their powerful denunciation of patriarchy in its many forms: social, political, and religious. Set in an insane asylum, The Innocence of the Devil is a complex and chilling novel that recasts the relationships of God and Satan, of good and evil. Intertwining the lives of two young women as they discover their sexual and emotional powers, Saadawi weaves a dreamlike narrative that reveals how the patriarchal structures of Christianity and Islam are strikingly similar: physical violation of women is not simply a social or political phenomenon, it is a religious one as well. While more measured in tone than Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Saadawi's novel is similar in its linguistic, literary, and philosophical richness. Evoking a world of pain and survival that may be unfamiliar to many readers, it speaks in a universal voice that reaches across cultures and is the author's most potent weapon. - from the publisher

The Qadi and the Fortune Teller - Saleh, Nabil

A leather-bound manuscript is found hidden in a wall of a house in the rubble of Beirut in the late 1970s. It is the diary of a Muslim judge in Ottoman Beirut during 1843 -- a critical time for the Ottoman Empire and the European powers. In a sequence of stories and vignettes the diary tells of his work as a judge, the cases he has to deal with amid the political conspiracies and diplomatic intrigues of the times and the impact they have on his relations with others. Family and political misfortunes change the judge's quiet life and shatter his dream of a pair of red slippers, in a dramatic crescendo with consequences he is unable to control. - from the publisher

NONFICTION

Anne Hutchinson, a forty-six- year-old midwife who was pregnant with her sixteenth child, stood before forty male judges of the Massachusetts General Court, charged with heresy and sedition. In a time when women could not vote, hold public office, or teach outside the home, the charismatic Hutchinson wielded remarkable political power. Her unconventional ideas had attracted a following of prominent citizens eager for social reform. Hutchinson defended herself brilliantly, but the judges, faced with a perceived threat to public order, banished her for behaving in a manner "not comely for [her] sex." American Jezebel brings both balance and perspective to Hutchinson's story. It captures this American heroine's life in all its complexity, presenting her not as a religious fanatic, a cardboard feminist, or a raging crank -- as some have portrayed her -- but as a flesh-and-blood wife, mother, theologian, and political leader. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was haunted by the "sainted" Hutchinson, used her as a model for Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Her neighbor John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, referred to her as "the instrument of Satan," the new Eve, the "disturber of Israel," a witch, "more bold than a man," and Jezebel -- the ancient Israeli queen who, on account of her tremendous political power, was "the most evil woman" in the Bible. The book narrates her dramatic expulsion from Massachusetts, after which her judges, still threatened by her challenges, promptly built Harvard College to enforce religious and social orthodoxies -- making her midwife to the nation's first college. In exile, she settled Rhode Island (which later merged with Roger Williams's Providence Plantation), becoming the only woman ever to co-found an American colony. - from the publisher

Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Underground Railroad - Hagedorn, Ann

The town of Ripley, located on the Ohio River between the slave state of Kentucky and the free state of Ohio, was the site of clashes between abolitionists and slave hunters long before the start of the Civil War. Hagedorn brings to life lesser-known activists in the abolitionist movement who led double lives in a small town torn up over the issue of slavery. She focuses on the Reverend John Rankin, spurred by religious fervor to become a leading abolitionist, helping escaped slaves travel on to Canada during the early 1820s. Using historical documents, newspapers, and letters, Hagedorn captures a fervent era, when the Missouri Compromise, the invention of the cotton gin, and growing slave revolts all set the stage for roiling debate on slavery. Rankin and his family were part of a network of abolitionists that included Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Parker, a free black man who ventured south to guide slaves to freedom. Readers interested in the history of the abolitionist movement in the U.S. will appreciate this look at unsung heroes of the era. - Booklist

The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank - Lindwer, Willy

Anne Frank's now famous diary stops days before her hiding place was found and she began a forced journey to Auschwitz. Through her record of ordinary life in a terrible era, she became a voice for all who died. Lindwer, a documentary filmmaker, found six women who knew Anne in the camps; they described on camera their own memories of her death and their own survival. Here Lindwer presents the complete texts of interviews, which could not be fully incorporated into Lindwer's 1988 documentary. Not only is the courage of the survivors demonstrated but the nature of death and dying is clarified for the far greater number, like Anne, who disappeared in the Holocaust. - Library Journal

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time - Kaku, Michio

Einstein worked out his theories in images. Recent popular works about Einstein have magnified select details of his life, such as his tempestuous marriage to Mileva Maric or his FBI file. Such topics are reduced to paragraphs in Kaku's presentation, for Einstein's life ranks second to his science here. Accordingly, Kaku divides his narrative into the three great segments of Einstein's scientific arc: the theory of special relativity in 1905; the theory of general relativity in 1916; and the balance of Einstein's intellectual life. The latter was spent searching for a unified field theory and saw the rise of his phenomenal celebrity, which his peers regarded as a dubious dissipation of genius. However, such lamentations were premature, according to Kaku, who explicates recent discoveries that show Einstein was only audaciously ahead of his scientific time, as usual. An expert in quantum mechanics and string theory, Kaku is an equally able popular writer, vividly evoking the pictorial imagination behind Einstein's revolutionary thinking. - Booklist

For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery - Stark, Rodney

Rodney Stark's new book argues that, whether we like it or not, people acting for the glory of God have formed our modern culture. Continuing his project of identifying the widespread consequences of monotheism, Stark shows that the Christian conception of God resulted - almost inevitably and for the same reasons - in the Protestant Reformation, the rise of modern science, the European witch-hunts, and the Western abolition of slavery. In the process, he explains why Christian and Islamic images of God yielded such different cultural results, leading Christians but not Muslims to foster science, burn "Witches," and denounce slavery. - from the publisher

Contents: Introduction: Dimensions of the Supernatural -- God's Truth: Inevitable Sects and Reformations -- God's Handiwork: The Religious Origins of Science -- God's Enemies: Explaining the European Witch-Hunts -- God's Justice: The Sin of Slavery -- Postscript: Gods, Rituals, and Social Science -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling - King, Ross

Almost 500 years after Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the site still attracts throngs of visitors and is considered one of the artistic masterpieces of the world. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling unveils the story behind the art's making, a story rife with all the drama of a modern-day soap opera. The temperament of the day was dictated by the politics of the papal court, a corrupt and powerful office steeped in controversy; Pope Julius II even had a nickname, "Il Papa Terrible," to prove it. Along with his violent outbursts and warmongering, Pope Julius II took upon himself to restore the Sistine Chapel and pretty much intimidated Michelangelo into painting the ceiling even though the artist considered himself primarily a sculptor and was particularly unfamiliar with the temperamental art of fresco. Along with technical difficulties, personality conflicts, and money troubles, Michelangelo was plagued by health problems and competition in the form of the dashing and talented young painter Raphael. Author Ross King offers an in-depth analysis of the complex historical background that led to the magnificence that is the Sistine Chapel ceiling along with detailed discussion of some of the ceiling’s panels. King provides fabulous tidbits of information and weaves together a fascinating historical tale. - Amazon.com

A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People - Ozment, Steven E.

Ozment's survey of German history packs a vast amount of information into a comparatively few number of pages, and it hits on all the expected high points: Charlemagne's empire, the Reformation, Frederick the Great's enlightened regime, the Bismarckian union of duchies, principalities, and free states to form modern Germany, while giving plenty of weight to the darker episodes, particularly the 12-year rule of Hitler. Can all of these historical data, and particularly those of more recent vintage, be used to construct a psychobiography of the German people, as so many have tried to do before? Ozment initially resists the idea, writing, "Germans are among the most difficult Europeans to fathom and the one European people without whom the story of that civilization cannot intelligibly be told." Yet by the end of this well-told overview, he is comfortable inwriting that the "present-day German is five persons in one, three of whom remain ineradicably German" and in hazarding the opinion that Germans of the future will be, if the past is a reliable guide, less given to individualism and more inclined to order, leading to "a tighter democracy by comparison with that of today." A useful and welcome survey. - Kirkus

The Gate - Bizot, Francois

A foreword by John le Carre may attract readers looking for a taut tale of fictional espionage. But what they will find in these pages is far more harrowing than any novel. As the only Westerner to survive one of Pol Pot's prison camps, Bizot saw up close the faces of the ideologues who dragged a once-peaceful country into the nightmare of genocide. Strangely, in recounting the harsh months he spent in captivity as a suspected CIA spy, Bizot describes his interrogator (Ta Douch) with deep respect--but also expresses profound grief at how this impassioned idealist degenerates into the worst kind of butcher. But release from Ta Douch and his other captors does not transport Bizot out of the maelstrom sweeping through Cambodia: eventually, he finds himself pressed into service as a translator and negotiator at the gate (hence the title) of the French embassy. It is through this gate that desperate asylum seekers try to escape from torture and death. But their ruthless Khmer Rouge pursuers, ignoring international law, pass through that gate as well, denying the French control of their own embassy compound. In his portrayals of the men and women turned away from the gate at which he stood vigil, and of those forcibly wrested away from the harried party that finally evacuates through that same gate, Bizot leaves his readers with haunting images of the doomed. - Boolist (starred review)

The Wright Style: Recreating the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright - Lind, Carla

An extraordinary look inside dozens of Wright's incomparable houses. As the magnificent houses here show, each of Wright's buildings was a complex composition of many interrelated elements; he regarded them as symphonies. Wright designed not just the shell, but everything inside as well: furniture, skylights, art glass windows, light fixtures, textiles, carpets, wall murals, decorative accessories, even the landscaping. Illustrating how Wright affected and inspired other houses, The Wright Style also presents interpretations of Wright's principles by some of his followers and apprentices providing a guided walk through a century of his unsurpassed influence on design. "Wright's ideas have so permeated our architectural world that we have lost track of the source," writes author Lind. "His open floor plans led to family rooms, kitchens open to living areas, indoor spaces open to outdoor living spaces, garden rooms, decks, and carports. His use of glass opened window walls and brought generous amounts of light and inspiring vistas into rooms. He altered America's collective subconscious. By bringing together many elements and inspirations, most neither new nor original, he was able to synthesize fresh new forms that reflected the character of the nation." - from the publisher

Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths - Feiler, Bruce S.

At a time when conflicts among three of the world's major religions--Islam, Judaism, and Christianity--are in the global spotlight, Bruce Feiler offers a stunning biography of the one man who unites all three religions: Abraham. "The most mesmerizing story of Abraham's life--his offering a son to God--plays a pivotal role in the holiest week of the Christian year, at Easter," writes Feiler. "The story is recited at the start of the holiest fortnight in Judaism, on Rosh Hashanah. The episode inspires the holiest day in Islam, 'Id al-Adha,' the Feast of the Sacrifice, at the climax of the Pilgrimage. And yet the religions can't even agree on which son he tried to kill." This captivating biography speaks to Abraham as the metaphor he is: the historically elusive man who embodies three religions, a character who has shape-shifted over the millennia to serve the clashing goals and dogma of each religion. Anyone seeking to understand the roots of tension in the Middle East need look no further than the final half of this book, where Feiler interprets the meaning of Abraham as seen through the prism of each religion. Surprisingly, the book is as entertaining as it is thoughtful: Feiler is a masterful writer with a warm, humorous voice, a dazzling way with metaphors, and an underlying intelligence that comes through in every passage. Abraham deserves the highest of recommendations. - Amazon.com

Batik: 20 Beautiful Projects Using Simple Techniques - Light, Diana

A craft derived from ancient Asian cultures adopts a decidedly modern visage under the tutelage of artist Light. This volume in the Weekend Crafter series simplifies the art of wax-resist dyeing, or batik, enough so that novices can handily turn out one of the 21 easy-to-emulate projects--perhaps not in two days, but in less time than readers might envision. The secret? The book provides robust how-to color photographs and specifies, for the most part, readily available household equipment (eliminating budgetary strains). Armed with a traditional tjanting or wan pen and enough safety precautions, a newbie batiker chooses, then, from household accessories--lunch bag, pillows, slipcovers--to wearables and gifts such as a wren t-shirt, wine gift bag, or chiffon sarong. To ensure project perfection, Light adds sidebars and tips at appropriate text points--the right fabrics, symbol interpretations on dye packages, avoiding the clinginess of chiffon while working. The demystification of a much-valued, centuries-old textile art. - Booklist

Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls' Schools - Debare, Ilana

Journalist DeBare offers a combination general history of girls' schools in America and the particular history of cofounding an all-girls middle school in Oakland, Calif. Beginning with the early 19th century, "when educating women was a gutsy act," DeBare traces the evolution of girls' schools from middle-class to elite institutions. She also covers public, Catholic and African-American girls' schools, finding similarities and differences. The historical account gives way to a psychological and sociological report. Then there's groundbreaking studies that would "ultimately change the entire image and mission of girls' schools" by teaching educators about girls' psychological development and unearthing sex discrimination in coed schools. By the end of the 1990s, girls' schools, which two decades earlier had "seemed headed for extinction," were enjoying a revival, DeBare notes. Although what's best for girls continues to be controversial, DeBare presents a workmanlike but cogent history of how single-sex schools have survived and thrived. - Publisher's Weekly

How to Try a Murder: The Handbook for Armchair Lawyers - Kurland, Michael

Noted crime writer Michael Kurland delves into the art and craft of a murder trial, using a fictional narrative and real-life stories to illustrate each step of the process, from the discovery of the body, to trial procedures and strategy, to the conviction and sentencing. This engrossing look at our legal system includes explanations of the various elements of a trial, including: the amount and kind of evidence needed to make an arrest, the purpose of the grand jury, defense strategy and prosecution tactics, the criteria attorneys use when selecting a jury, examination and cross-examination of witnesses, and what a jury must consider when rendering a verdict. - from the publisher

Brown V. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy - Patterson, James T.

Patterson (history, Brown Univ., Grand Expectations) is eminently qualified to lead us through the saga of the Civil Rights movement as it relates to public education. The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision overturned a way of thinking that had persisted largely unchallenged since the end of the Civil War. A commonly accepted legal theory supported by an 1896 Supreme Court decision (Plessy v. Ferguson) was based, the author notes, upon archaic psychological theories that had been superseded by modern theory supporting a linkage between racial segregation and concomitant feelings of inferiority and damage to motivation and, hence, to learning. The author devotes the rest of the book to the tedious and thorny issues of implementation that he believes were needlessly protracted because the Court, in an effort to achieve unanimity and, feeling the need to placate the Southern states by abstaining from inflammatory rhetoric or threat of force, laid down only broad guidelines. The result, notes the author, is a process that has lately actually fluctuated back in the direction of permitting re-segregation in neighborhood schools where demographic changes resulting from private choice rather than public policy have produced a different racial mix. The issues are complex, profound, and ongoing, but the author provides balanced and extensive coverage. - Library Journal

Change Makers: From Carnegie to Gates, How the Great Entrepreneurs Transformed Ideas into Industries - Klein, Maury

Using lively character sketches and company stories, University of Rhode Island professor and author Maury Klein analyzes how innovators from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates triumphed over perennial challenges in planning and strategy, production, operations, staffing, and sales-and transformed entire industries. Comparing the retailing acumen of J.C. Penney and Wal-Mart's Sam Walton, the organizational ingenuity of Standard Oil's John D. Rockefeller and Citigroup's Sandy Weill, the imaginative marketing of General Motors' Alfred Sloan and MacDonald's Ray Kroc, Klein reveals the art and archetype of successful entrepreneurialism. Moving beyond the cliches, he describes the artistry of great businessmen who build empires and dreams as well as fortunes.

Contents: Prologue: Say Good-bye to the Robber Barons -- The Enigma of Creativity -- Portrait of the Entrepreneur as a Young Man -- The Entrepreneurs and Their Visions -- The Talents of the Great Entrepreneurs -- The Entrepreneurs at Work -- Follies and Foibles -- All in the Family -- The Law and the Higher Law -- The Entrepreneurs Off Duty -- Epilogue: Profiling the Great Entrepreneur.

Etching Glass: 20 Simple, Elegant Projects to Etch with Easy-to-Use Creams and Liquids - Gilchrist, Paige

With complete pattern templates and excellent step-by-step instructions (each accompanied by an individual how-to photo), the book offers 20 projects ranging from glasses, bottles, canisters, and drawer pulls to a punch bowl set, table, and room divider. A gallery of artist-created pieces provides further inspiration. - Amazon.com

REFERENCE

Cassell's Latin Dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin - Simpson, D. P.

Amo, amas, amat and all that.

Colleges That Change Lives: Revised Edition - Pope, Loren

In this revised and expanded guide, College Placement Bureau Director Loren Pope profiles forty colleges that excel at developing potential, values, initiative, and risk--taking in a wide range of students. This new edition includes a revised group of colleges and for the first time addresses the issues of home schooling, learning disabilities, and single--sex education. Pope encourages students to be hard--nosed consumers when visiting colleges, and shows how the college experience can enrich every young person's life, whether they are "A," "B," or "C" students. Included in the profiles are: evaluations of each school's program and "personality," interviews with undergraduates, professors, and deans, and information on what happens to the graduates and what they think of their college experience. - from the publisher

Dictionary of Latin Words and Phrases - Morwood, James

This authoritative and highly browsable guide provides an enlightening account of the meaning and history of Latin words and phrases that have entered the English language. - Ingram

Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - Mann, George

In an A-to-Z format, augmented by an ample index and helpful cross-references, this richly informative volume presents science fiction as it appears in film as well as in the print media, including entries on important illustrators, and covers both the modern developments in the field and the classic landmarks. Furthermore, each author entry ends with an "Also see" section that directs readers to related topics, and all entries provide full bibliographies. Equally invaluable is the opening chapter, which gives a brief history of the genre and traces its evolution from origins that long precede the twentieth century. - from the publisher

DVD & VHS

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure - Palin, Michael

Michael Palin turns his wandering eye to the life and locales of Ernest Hemingway. This series moves in and out of past and present to the places that meant so much to Hemingway: Chicago, his birthplace; Italy, scene of his World War I injuries; Paris; Pamplona and the running of the bulls; his beloved Havana; Key West, where his presence is still felt; Uganda, where he went on safari; and Ketchum, Idaho, where he died. The first stop goes straight to the heart of Hemingway: his passion for the Spanish way of life and its bullfighting rituals, and his freedom to spend months at a time on the plains of Kenya and in the Green Hills of Africa. Next Palin investigates the busy streets of Chicago and the suburb of Oak Park, where the Hemingway myth began. In Europe, he travels to the Italian Front where Hemingway was shot and badly wounded. Palin travels to Florida's Key West to visit Hemingway's house and then travels to Cuba, examining the charms of Havana that captivated Hemingway there for 20 years. Hemingway departed his beloved Cuba after Castro's communist revolution and returned to the open spaces of the American West, to Hemingway's last home in Ketchum, Idaho. Confronted with Hemingway's simple grave in Ketchum cemetery, Palin pays his last respects to his phantom traveling companion, describing "an odd feeling of emptiness, like a good party after the host's gone." But what a party. - from the cover