New Books

March 2004

DVDs

Butterfly (DVD)

In Spanish with English subtitles. French language track option also available.
Acclaimed by critics and featuring legendary star Fernando Fernan Gomez (All About My Mother), Butterfly is a heartwarming tale about a young boy growing up in a small Spanish town. Moncho is timid and fearful as he starts school for the first time. But with the nuturing guidance of his kind and devoted teacher, Don Gregorio (Fernan Gomez), a world of possibilities begins to open up for young Moncho. As the school year comes to a close, however, civil war begins sweeping across the country, forcing the boy's family and community to choose between the fight for freedom and the threat of persecution! An amazing story of family and friendship during a time of extreme conflict. - from the cover

In Search of Shakespeare (DVD) - Wood, Michael

***Episode one: A Time of Revolution begins in 16th century England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. William Shakespeare is born to a wealthy family and receives a decent education. During his teenage years, his family is persecuted for believing in the Pope under the Queen's strictly Protestant rule. Forced to go to work and leave school, Shakespeare becomes a father and a husband at the age of 18. He writes a love poem to his wife, which would become his first known work. His family's trouble with the Protestants escalates, leading to a feud with the wealthy Lucy family.
***Episode two: The Lost Years focuses on the controversial time period between William Shakespeare's marriage at 18 and his emergence as a prominent writer at age 28. The only concrete facts about this time are that his three children were born and his contemporary rival Christopher Marlowe was killed. Presenter Michael Wood examines the various theories of Shakespeare's whereabouts. In Lancashire, it is believed he lived with a Catholic family. Tudor maps and Victorian photographs point to his first London neighborhood. Other evidence suggests he was a member of the Queen's Men, a company of actors working for Elizabeth's Protestant propaganda. The Royal Shakespeare Company also performs some early works.
***Episode three: The Duty of Poets chronicles William Shakespeare's rise to fame in 1590s England. He rejects his religious affiliations, receives patronage from the Earl of Southampton, and completes Romeo and Juliet. While at the height of his career, he also suffers some great losses. His only son, Hamnet, dies at the age of 11, and his company gets kicked out of their theater. During this time, he also gets involved in numerous extramarital affairs and gets summoned to appear in court. Undaunted, Shakespeare participates in the building of the famous Globe Theatre in Southwark, London. The Royal Shakespeare Company performs Othello in Leicester Guildhall.
***Episode four: For All Time concludes the story of William Shakespeare's life during the reign of King James I, the son of Mary Queen of Scots. Due to political paranoia and fear in London leading to the English Civil War, Shakespeare writes Macbeth. Back home in Stratford, he returns to his family's area for the wedding of his daughter Susanna. He retires in a house next to his company's first indoor theater, the Blackfriars. He finished his final play King Henry VIII in 1612. However, his own will is often seen as a strange riddle in itself. The Royal Shakespeare Company performs King Lear, starring Julian Glover.

NONFICTION

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival - Heinrich, Bernd

How do bears, bees, frogs and other creatures stay alive in a barren, subzero landscape? A veteran natural history author and University of Vermont biology professor, Heinrich (Mind of the Raven) uses the New England winter as a laboratory for investigating the adaptability and evolution of animals. In short, dense, lucid chapters that will intrigue both natural history buffs and neophytes, Heinrich discusses the survival strategies-such as hibernation and nest building-of mammals, birds and reptiles. He shows how bears endure months of hibernation without losing muscle mass or bone density, how an air-breathing snapping turtle survives six months at the bottom of a frozen pond and how honeybees keep the temperature in their hives at a balmy 36 degrees Celsius no matter how cold it is outside. The author reflects on such subjects as the ethics of hunting and the implications of animal survival strategies-particularly the bear's ability to stay in shape without exercise-for human health. Nature lovers will delight in this lively, fascinating study. - Publishers Weekly

On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren - Jardine, Lisa

"He was a landmark figure in a landmark age," Jardine writes in the preface to her sizable biography of the great architect Wren. But Jardine resists merely looking at Wren's architectural achievements and focuses instead on the man as a whole, who had accomplishments in many areas. Born in 1632, Wren was to live 91 years, to survive the English civil war (despite his father's ties to Charles I), and to thrive after the Restoration as the royal surveyor for five consecutive monarchs. As a young man, Wren pursued such diverse interests as medicine, astronomy, and small-scale design before being tapped to design King Charles II's chambers. From there, he only rose in prominence, becoming an influential and important member of the Royal Society, taking the position of the chair of astronomy at Oxford, and designing such magnificent edifices as the monument to the Great Fire and St. Paul's Cathedral. Jardine's thorough, engaging biography presents Wren's brilliance and many accomplishments against the backdrop of the exciting age in which he lived. - Booklist

The Road from Versailles: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Fall of the French Monarchy - Price, Munro

In this engrossing work of historical scholarship, Price has managed to unravel a complex web of intrigue that has baffled historians since the demise of the ancien r gime. Through brilliant detective work, Price (senior lecturer, Univ. of Bradford; Preserving the Monarchy) has uncovered documents that shed a definitive light on the French Crown's policy toward the revolution. Specifically, he has located among other significant archival materials a "large buff ledger" that itemizes secret missions that the Marquis de Bombelles undertook on behalf of Louis XVI. (Bombelles was the prot g of Baron de Breteuil, who was the French monarch's designated envoy to the Courts of Europe from 1791 until the collapse of the French monarchy.) Up to now, a paucity of documentary evidence has made it very difficult for students of the French Revolution to determine the Crown's true intentions during the critical early years of revolutionary turmoil. Price proves that the French king and queen made a concerted effort to undermine the work of the Constituant Assembly and to gain foreign support for restoration of royal authority. This definitive study moves well beyond such works as Michel Vovelle's The Fall of the French Monarchy. Highly recommended. - Library Journal

The Hidden Life of Otto Frank - Lee, Carol Ann

In this definitive new biography, Carol Ann Lee provides the answer to one of the most heartbreaking questions of modern times: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis? Probing this startling act of treachery, Lee brings to light never before documented information about Otto Frank and the individual who would claim responsibility -- revealing a terrifying relationship that lasted until the day Frank died. Based upon impeccable research into rare archives and filled with excerpts from the secret journal that Frank kept from the day of his liberation until his return to the Secret Annex in 1945, this landmark biography at last brings into focus the life of a little-understood man -- whose story illuminates some of the most harrowing and memorable events of the last century. - from the publisher

Hydroponics: Soilless Gardening Explained - Bridgewood, Les

An acknowledged authority with more than 25 years' experience, Bridgewood examines the nutritional requirements and explains the diverse methods of hydroponics in an accomplished and accessible guide. Beginning with a concise overview of its history and basic methodology, Bridgewood then offers in-depth background on supporting topics such as nutrient solutions, hygiene, and greenhouse unit construction and maintenance. Explicit line drawings and detailed color photographs further aid in clarifying techniques and procedures. - Booklist

Color: A Natural History of the Palette - Finlay, Victoria

In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist's palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself.

How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelo's brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian mummies? Why did Robin Hood wear Lincoln green? In Color, Finlay explores the physical materials that color our world, such as precious minerals and insect blood, as well as the social and political meanings that color has carried through time.
Roman emperors used to wear togas dyed with a purple color that was made from an odorous Lebanese shellfish–which probably meant their scent preceded them. In the eighteenth century, black dye was called logwood and grew along the Spanish Main. Some of the first indigo plantations were started in America, amazingly enough, by a seventeen-year-old girl named Eliza. And the popular van Gogh painting White Roses at Washington's National Gallery had to be renamed after a researcher discovered that the flowers were originally done in a pink paint that had faded nearly a century ago. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes. - from the publisher

Coal: A Human History - Freese, Barbara

Deleterious to health and beneficial to wealth, coal contains a tension that makes its story a compelling one. Freese is a former attorney general of Minnesota, who became interested in the flammable rock's history during her tenure. After a routine description of coal's geological formation, Freese invigorates her narrative with its combustion in England. Even in the 1500s, its noxiousness provoked denunciation, but with Britannia's forests all but consumed, it became everybody's heat source. Freese is quite succinct in describing coal's critical role in sparking the Industrial Revolution, whose side effects included a troglodytic existence for miners and suffocating fogs for Manchester and London. The author then covers America's seduction by coal, and presently China's, culminating with her advocating reduction of coal's primary pollutants, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, and its ultimate banishment as an energy source. Freese's combination of labor and technological history is fluid and evenhanded. - Booklist

The Jewish Study Bible - Oxford University Press

Serious students of Judaism will want to have a copy of this outstanding and surprisingly affordable study Bible, which stands in the tradition of Oxford's great study Bibles. Using the Jewish Publication Society translation, the books of the Jewish canon are presented in their traditional order: Torah (the five books of Moses); Nevi'im (the major and minor prophets); and Kethuvim (the other writings). Leading Jewish scholars introduce each book and offer extensive sidebar commentary, discussing the views of ancient and modern rabbinic scholars. In addition, the volume provides two dozen scholarly essays on different aspects of interpretation: the Bible's use in various periods in Jewish history, in the liturgy, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are essays on biblical languages, canonization, textual criticism, philosophical and mystical traditions, and biblical poetry. This landmark volume is at once serious and accessible, and spans the spectrum of Jewish thought. - Publisher's Weekly

Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express - Corbett, Christopher

"Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages-$25 per week." Thus ran a notice in several western newspapers in 1860. Or maybe not. This is just one of many unproved "facts" about the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company, better known as the Pony Express. The Pony's day was short, a mere 18 months, from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861 (just two days after the completion of the first coast-to-coast telegraph line). The company was a financial disaster for its owners. The total amount of mail carried was insignificant. Ah, but the "twisted truth and lasting legend," now that is something a good writer can throw in his saddlebag and ride with. And Corbett does exactly that in this fine analysis of the famed riders of the Wild West. He does an excellent job of finding bits of truth hidden behind layers of myth. For example, Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok were not Pony Express heroes, despite numerous dime novels and Hollywood westerns to the contrary. On the other hand, true heroes were lost among the lore. The feats of Robert Haslam and William F. Fisher were impressive by any standard. This book tells two main stories: what happened (so far as is known) and how the legend grew (about which much is known). - School Library Journal

Care and Feeding of Books Old and New: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers - Marcowitz, Bern

The authors detail both friends of books (no direct sunlight, clean cloths, and sturdy level shelves) and foes (dust, insects, and the like) as well as simple cleaning and repairing. Nothing is complex--Elmer's Glue, for instance, rates as one of the best panaceas. And nothing is rushed--"dogs teach patience," the authors counsel. Everything here is absolutely dedicated to an enduring love of the printed page, accompanied by reflections on collecting, borrowing/lending, and enjoying the society around books. Head, tail, and spine above most nonfiction how-to's, this modest book deserves attention far beyond the universe of bibliomaniacs. - Booklist

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician - Everitt, Anthony

He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times.
In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday—when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another’s sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome. - from the publisher

Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like: *To Walk on the Moon *To Be Gored by a Bull *To Survive an Avalanche *To Swallow Swords *To Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel *To Be Shot in the Head *To Win the Lottery… - Jacobs, A. J.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like: to be stuck in a tornado? to have a severe stutter? to be a mob hitman? to be 105 years old? If these tidbits whet your appetite for real, first-person accounts of some of life’s most exhilarating, harrowing, or downright strange experiences, then you’ll be sucked in by Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like. Collected by the ever-curious editors of Esquire magazine, here are more than fifty gripping tales—straight from the mouths of the people who’ve lived them. - from the publisher

Getting Ready for College: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go From Bike Locks to Laundry Baskets, Financial Aid to Health Care - Berent, Polly

Getting Ready for College is the ultimate easy-to-use guide to success for college-bound seniors, first-years, and their parents. Polly Berent answers the questions you didn’t know you would need to ask:
• What’s the deal on financial aid and cash management?
• Should I bring a flashlight to school? Do I really need a microwave and a vacuum
cleaner?
• Should I call Mom every time I’m homesick? Will my boyfriend/girlfriend wait for me?
• Will having a credit card help me? Do I need quarters for the laundry?
• When should I lock my room? Where can I fill my prescriptions in my new town?
• Should I take intro classes or harder classes? Should I join a frat/sorority?
• How could I possibly have time to figure all this out and keep in touch with my old
friends?
This essential manual includes day planners, notes on how to take notes, tips on how to make a “real life” file, and advice from scores of college students in the trenches as well as campus health-care professionals, college counselors, administrators, and financial-aid advisers. This is everything you need to know about getting ready for college, from students and parents just like you. - from the publisher

God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible - Nicolson, Adam

The quip about the Bible being the greatest book ever written by a committee is just a quip, but the English Bible that King James I commissioned in 1604 really was committee work. Each of six committees, or companies, as they were called, was charged with translating a different portion of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. The Translators (their official title, and as such, capitalized) were far-from-saintly Anglican clergymen and scholars, selected to exclude radical Puritan sentiments from the finished translation (James had had enough of Puritan divisiveness while on the throne of Scotland). Their handiwork was to be the preferred pulpit Bible, so it had to be accessible in vocabulary and tonally. In that respect, the Translators succeeded so brilliantly that their style remains the quintessence of sacred prose to this day. Religious utility wasn't, however, the primary original purpose of the King James Version. Rather, the KJV was an element of James' grand dream of forging a harmoniously united realm out of the faction-ridden one he inherited from Elizabeth I. In that respect, the book was a failure, for not until after the Puritan American colonies embraced it (ironically, given its anti-Puritan conception) did England accept it. Nicolson tells the KJV's story so well that his book may prove to be the KJV's indispensable companion for years to come. - Booklist (starred review)

The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture - Wilson, Frank R.

A neurologist maintains that the hand is equal to the brain in understanding human evolution and intelligence. The cephalocentric view, as Wilson technically labels the obsession with the noggin, overshadows the hand's role in mediating the physical world for the brain. His presentation of the pro-hand position can be dauntingly specialized, as in his description of digital anatomy, but Wilson's material comes together in his profiles of people whose hands are crucial in their careers. In his interviews with a car mechanic, marionette master, juggler, surgeon, magician, guitarist, and others, Wilson effects his book's goal of discovering the "hidden physical roots . . . of passionate and creative work." The interviewees recall when they realized their special skills and the dedication necessary to achieving their manual adroitness. Outside of such tangible testimonials, Wilson discusses how researchers think hands evolved in the successive species of the hominid line or hands' speculated role in the emergence of language. A palm-opening discussion of an appendage most take for granted. - Booklist

Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan - Khouri, Norma

Khouri's eye-opening memoir is the story of her best friend, Dalia, a young Muslim woman who was murdered by her own father when she fell in love with a Christian man. Norma and Dalia lived in Jordan, stifled by strict laws that deny women almost all freedom. Norma, a Christian (who had to flee Jordan after publishing this book), and Dalia became friends as children, before becoming aware of the stringent restrictions forced on women. Their friendship endured, and the girls convinced their fathers to allow them to open a hair salon. At their salon, the girls were able to steal a few moments away from the watchful eyes of their male relatives. But everything changes when Dalia meets Michael, a handsome royal guardsman and a Christian. She convinces Norma to go with her on secret rendezvous with Michael, and as they become more attached to each other, they determine to flee Jordan for a place where they can marry. Khouri's heartbreaking account is both a loving tribute to her best friend and an astounding exposure of "honor" killings. - Booklist

How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War--From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror - Alexander, Bevin

Using the works of Sun Tzu as a framework, Alexander has formulated 13 rules by which wars are won: striking at enemy weakness, feigning retreat, striking at a weak spot, etc. He devotes a chapter to each rule, describing famous battles that serve as examples of his rules in action, and then concludes each chapter with a post-9/11 implication as to the rule's application to the future of warfare. - Library Journal

I'm Working on That: A Trek from Science Fiction to Science Fact - Shatner, William

"Captain Kirk" and a veteran science writer effectively team to provide an overview of the last third-of-a-century's progress toward making Star Trek technology real. And progress has been considerable, as anyone who remembers the ST "tricorder" and now owns a cell phone with Internet capability can attest. Virtual reality, advanced computers great and small, A(rtificial)I(ntelligence), the Web, and computerized implants (a la the Borg of Star Trek: The Next Generation) are all closer to sprouting in the average office or backyard. Faster-than-light travel, the transporter, close-up study of black holes (let alone traversing them), and some of Dr. McCoy's med tech are still at or beyond the fringe, but aren't guaranteed to stay there forever. And Shatner expresses the perspective of somebody with a layman's problems in coping with existing "Star Tech" well, and even wittily. A perfect world might not need a celebrity author to sell such a book; in our world we at least get an author who knows what he is talking about and meshes gracefully with his collaborator. - Booklist

It's Not Over 'Til It's Over: The Stories behind the Most Magnificent, Heart-stopping Sports Miracles of our Time - Silverman, Al

In the modern world of ESPN and the Internet, hype often diminishes reality. Every game is an epic; every comeback is a miracle. Silverman, former editor of Sport magazine, provides much-needed context by recounting 13 events that--given the perspective of time--actually deserve the "miracle" designation. He presents them in chronological order, beginning with Fred Merkle's infamous "bonehead" play in a crucial 1908 game between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants that may have cost the Giants the pennant. He ends with the 1999 U.S. women's World Cup championship. In between are Bobby Thomson's dramatic 1951 homer, the 1958 NFL overtime championship battle between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game, and the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey championship. Silverman provides a context for the drama, personalizes the participants, and adds a sense of how the event colored the rest of the participants' lives. An enjoyable glance backward. - Booklist

Rock Hard Apps: How to Write a Killer College Application - Cohen, Katherine

Dr. Katherine Cohen (who once worked in the admissions office of Yale University), founder of Ivywise, a private college admissions practice, follows three students through the college application process and uses dozens of other real applications to illustrate what's effective in a college application, and what's not. Here is the inside scoop on courses and grades, SATs, brag sheets, personal essays, and extra credit. Rock Hard Apps also includes sidebars of do's and don't's, as well as one complete before and after winning application to an Ivy League school. - from the publisher

Scientific American's Ask the Experts: Answers to The Most Puzzling and Mind-Blowing Science Questions - Editors of Scientific American

Why is the night sky dark? How do dolphins sleep without drowning? Why do hangovers occur? Will time travel ever be a reality? What makes a knuckleball appear to flutter? Why are craters always round? There's only one source to turn to for the answers to the most puzzling and thought-provoking questions about the world of science: Scientific American. Writing in a fun and accessible style, an esteemed team of scientists and educators will lead you on a wild ride from the far reaches of the universe to the natural world right in your own backyard. Along the way, you'll discover solutions to some of life's quirkiest conundrums, such as why cats purr, how frogs survive winter without freezing, why snowflakes are symmetrical, and much more. - from the publisher

Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America - Fialka, John J.

Sisters is the first major history of the pivotal role played by nuns in the building of American society. Nuns were the first feminists, argues Fialka. They became the nation's first cadre of independent, professional women. Some nursed, some taught, and many created and managed new charitable organizations, including large hospitals and colleges. In the 1800s nuns moved west with the frontier, often starting the first hospitals and schools in immigrant communities. They provided aid and service in the Chicago fire, cared for orphans and prostitutes in the California Gold Rush and brought professional nursing skills to field hospitals run by both armies in the Civil War. Their work was often done in the face of intimidation from such groups as the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan.In the 1900s they built the nation's largest private school and hospital systems and brought the Catholic Church into the civil rights movement. As their numbers began to decline in the 1970s, many sisters were forced to take professional jobs as lawyers, probation workers, managers and hospital executives because their salaries were needed to support older nuns, many of whom lacked a pension system. Currently there are about 75,000 sisters in America, down from 204,000 in 1968. Their median age is sixty-nine. In Sisters, Fialka reveals the strength of the spiritual capital and the unprecedented reach of the caring institutions that religious women created in America. - from the publisher

Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge - Koplow, David A.

Law professor Koplow's well-documented, readable book opens with a brief history of smallpox that includes coverage of such fascinating figures as Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Edward Jenner (who clinically identified the source of the viral disease), and D. A. Henderson, whose worldwide efforts led to virtual elimination of the malady. Thereafter, Koplow's description of viruses and basic scientific processes for working with their many varieties proves especially valuable to general readers, as does his examination of the uses, actual and potential, of smallpox in war and terrorism. His thorough examination of arguments for and against exterminating the disease contains pertinent scrutiny of public and military policy and the role of the World Health Organization. Possessed of considerable experience with national and international security matters, he doesn't approve of eradication. The final chapter of conclusions and recommendations should help keep the book off the shelf and circulating for some time, not least because it can be a valuable guide for post-9/11 discussions. - Booklist

The Soul's Palette: Drawing on Art's Transformative Powers for Health and Well-Being - Malchiodi, Cathy A.

Art therapist Malchiodi's positive treatise promotes art-making and creative imagery as natural forms of holistic healing. Practical guidance combined with workbook-like projects such as creating a "safe box" and keeping a "feelings journal" are geared to help readers find their spiritual centers, and, in the process, experience the healing that flows from the joy of creation. Step-by-step instructions help readers create healing environments through color, boost immune systems wracked by stress via self-affirmations and self-guided imagery, reduce and manage pain via artistic expression, and take "art breaks" from the strains of today's society. The life force, or "soul's palette," according to Malchiodi, need not be the exclusive domain of an elite few; instead, life enhancement through self-expression can become an integrated and transformational part of every life. - Booklist

The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversations with Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders - Thompson, Stephen

In most arenas, the art of the interview is in peril. Publicists have trained their charges to regurgitate scripted anecdotes and plug upcoming projects; TV, magazines, and newspapers usually play along, fearful they'll miss an opportunity to feature the star of the moment. But editors of the Onion, the satirical newspaper, have long known that people who don't have a movie opening in 2,000 megaplexes still have something to say. While the Onion's pursuit of iconoclastic interviewees began by necessity, not design--Mr. T was more likely to grant an interview to the fledgling, Wisconsin-based publication than Mike Tyson--these strugglers, has-beens, hermits, and successful malcontents proved both more frank and more interesting in discussing their art and experiences. This anthology includes conversations with a delightfully unpredictable mix of filmmakers, musicians, writers, and more. Among the best are cynical comedian George Carlin and a curmudgeonly Harlan Ellison. Roughly organized in an attitudinal decrescendo from vitriolic to content, and interspersed with recurring chats with the creators of the late, lamented Mr. Show, these exchanges sparkle. - Booklist

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neal Hurston - Boyd, Valerie

A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance -- including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker -- acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother, and her 1937 masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God has become a crucial part of the modern literary canon. Wrapped in Rainbows, the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston in more than twenty-five years, illuminates the adventures, complexities, and sorrows of an extraordinary life. Acclaimed journalist Valerie Boyd delves into Hurston's history -- her youth in the country's first incorporated all-black town, her friendships with luminaries such as Langston Hughes, her sexuality and short-lived marriages, and her mysterious relationship with vodou. With the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, and World War II as historical backdrops, Wrapped in Rainbows not only positions Hurston's work in her time but also offers riveting implications for our own. - from the publisher

Grace: An American Woman in China, 1934-1974 - Cooper, Eleanor McCallie

"May you live in interesting times" goes the Chinese blessing, especially apt for the life of Grace Divine Liu (1901-1979), a Tennessee native who, while living in China, witnessed the Japanese occupation, the Communist revolution, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. As this biography by Grace's cousin Cooper and her son Liu explains, Grace's own leap from Chattanooga, Tenn., to China began in 1926, when she moved to Manhattan at the age of 25 to pursue a singing career. There she met Liu Fu-chi, a Chinese engineering student at Cornell. The improbable couple nearly broke up under pressure from the two disapproving families, but ended up marrying and raising three children in his native land. They lived in the foreign-controlled territory of Tientsin, where Grace was one of a handful of Westerners to watch semicolonial China melt away and, later, to see all things Western or "bourgeois" purged under Mao. When her husband died in 1955, she supported herself by teaching English at Nankai University, and was briefly arrested during the Cultural Revolution for corresponding with foreign academics. Told mostly through Grace's captivating, humorous letters and the articles she wrote for American newspapers and journals, the book sketches Grace's daily life and her changing views of the Communist government. It reveals a life of remarkable good cheer despite harassment, chronic food rationing and illness. - Publishers Weekly

FICTION

From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it's an answer. Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?" - from the publisher

Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath - Moses, Kate

This exceptional first novel, shot through with a fierce poetic luminosity that almost matches that of Moses's much-written-about subject, covers the last few months of the poet's life as she cares for her sick children in the middle of a brutal London winter, struggling to write her last poems and recover from the defection of husband Ted Hughes. Moses is frank, in a long afterword, about her sources-which include Plath's letters and journals-and about what she has made up or merely surmised. But the key question is whether the book succeeds as a compelling piece of fiction, and the answer is that it does, triumphantly. Moses moves deftly back and forth in time, from the couple's last months in their beloved but moldering Devonshire hideaway through Plath's first suspicions of Hughes's infidelities to her arrival in London. Moses catches the quality of English life, particularly its austere inconveniences and its moody weather, with remarkable fluency, and her habitation of Plath's body and mind feels complete. At the same time, she offers scenes that show how awkward and bloody minded the poet could sometimes be. It is not a sentimental book, but rather one that evokes Plath's fierce joy in words and images and her huge motherly courage in the face of crippling adversity, with lacerating episodes like the one in which she makes a desperate call from a phone box in the rain while her children peer in at her uncomprehendingly. In the end one wonders not how Plath came to kill herself but how she survived so long. This beautifully written novel may offend literary purists, but most readers will find it moving almost beyond words. - Publishers Weekly

The Speed of Dark - Moon, Elizabeth

In the tradition of Flowers for Algernon, Moon's thought-provoking novel asks whether we treat impairments of the brain at too great a cost. Lou Arrendale is a young autistic living in a future time, when most of the symptoms of autism can be controlled through medication. Lou lives on his own, works full time at a job where his abilities to recognize patterns are valued, and socializes with nonautistics during his weekly fencing class. Although baffled by the complex social signals and subtle facial cues of nonautistics, Lou is content with himself as he is--until he falls in love with Marjory. When his supervisor pressures him to try an experimental treatment that will eradicate his autism, Lou must decide whether the benefits of life as a "normal" will outweigh the possible loss of the unique qualities that make him who he is. Moon is effective at putting the reader inside Lou's mind, and it is both fascinating and painful to see the behavior and qualities of so-called normals through his eyes. Booklist

Evolution - Baxter, Stephen

The book is nothing less than a novelization of human evolution, a mega-Michener treatment of 65 million years starring a host of smart, furry primates representing Homo sapiens's ancestry. Each stage of our ancestry is represented by a character of progressively increasing intelligence, empathy, and brain size, who must survive predation and other perils long enough to keep the natural-selection ball rolling. From little Purga, a shrewlike mammal scurrying under the feet of ankylosaurs, all the way through Ultimate, the last human descendant, Baxter adds drama and a strong story arc to our past and future. Evolution grips the attention with an epoch-spanning tale of the random changes that rule our genetic heritage. - Amazon.com

Fire Logic - Marks, Laurie J.

Marks is an absolute master of fantasy in this book. Her characters are beautifully drawn, showing tremendous emotional depth and strength as they endure the unendurable and strive always to do the right thing, and her unusual use of the elemental forces central to her characters' lives gives the book a big boost. This is read-it-straight-through adventure! Zanja is an emissary for her people, a peaceful mountain tribe of artisans in the land of Shaftal. While traveling with her mentor, the two witness the destruction of the ruling House of Lilterwess by the warring Sainnites, who have plagued all Shaftal for 15 years. Worse yet, the G'deon, the Earth witch who governed Shaftal, has died without an heir for the first time in history, leaving the Shaftali vulnerable to attack. A small army of resistance is being swiftly run down as the Sainnites make steady progress in their attempts to gain control of Shaftal. The country's fate now lies in the hands of just three persons: Emil the Paladin, Zanja the homeless diplomat, and Karis, a half-blood giant with a dark past and a paralyzing addiction. - Booklist (starred review)