Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Featured New Books

We have another batch of new books for you to read! All the summaries are from Goodreads.


To Kingdom Come: An Epic Saga of Survival in the Air War Over Germany
Robert Mrazek

Non-Fiction. On September 6, 1943, three hundred and thirty-eight B-17 "Flying Fortresses" of the American Eighth Air Force took off from England, bound for Stuttgart, Germany, to bomb Nazi weapons factories.

Dense clouds obscured the targets, and one commander's critical decision to circle three times over the city-and its deadly flak-would prove disastrous. Forty-five planes went down that day, and hundreds of men were lost or missing.

Focusing on first-person accounts of six of the B-17 airmen, award- winning author Robert Mrazek vividly re-creates the fierce air battle- and reveals the astonishing valor of the airmen who survived being shot down, and the tragic fate of those who did not.


Kissing Arizona
Elizabeth Gunn

Fiction. The new ‘Sarah Burke’ mystery from the creator of Jake Hines - As Sarah Burke and her crew of police detectives investigate an apparent murder-suicide in a well-known family of local merchants, their façade of diligent respectability explodes in a burst of violence that rips the cover off long-concealed family secrets. In a second case, Southern Arizona’s diverse population streams collide as border crossers and drug smugglers, federal agents and local cops fight for turf and answers in a beautiful valley that’s been loved and battled over for centuries.


The Four Seasons Book of Cocktails
Fred DuBose, Greg Connolly, Charles Corpion, John Varriano

Non-Fiction. Making even a perfect cocktail is rightly regarded as an enviable achievement, but why not learn how to make dozens? The Four Seasons Book of Cocktails draws on the expertise of the elite restaurant's staff to teach readers how to make more than 1,000 tasty mixed libations. In addition to all these artful concoctions, Greg Connolly, the Four Seasons' head barkeep and an inductee into the Bartender's Hall of Fame, and veteran barman Charles Corpion share tips, techniques, and short cuts that can increase any drink lover's beverage vocabulary.


Chasing the Sun
Richard Cohen

None-Fiction. The sun is one topic we can't ignore. Not only does this blinding bright star provide the heat that sustains us; it is so huge that it accounts for nearly 99.9% of our solar system's mass. Richard Cohen's Chasing the Sun doesn't just stun us with "wow" scientific details; it draws on seven years of research in eighteen countries to explain what we are still learning about this brightest object in the sky. Just as significantly, Cohen demonstrates the sun is virtually omnipresent in the world's mythologies, religions, literature, and art. Highly readable and lavishly illustrated, this book lifts the shadows on an unavoidable subject.

See something you like? Come on into the library, or you can place a hold using the catalog.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

This Week's Featured New Books

We have another batch of new books for you to read! All the summaries are from Goodreads.


Sarah's Gift
Marta Perry

Fiction. Amish midwife Sarah Mast moves to Pleasant Valley for a fresh start. But her aging aunt can no longer run the birthing center, leaving most of the responsibility to Sarah. Among those skeptical of Sarah's ability is neighbor Aaron Miller, who seems drawn to Sarah but pulls away when his own sister requests her services. And when a criminal complaint is filed against Sarah, she must pray for strength to defend her practice and win acceptance from the community she loves.


The Sea Captain's Wife
Beth Powning

Fiction. Azuba Galloway, daughter of a shipwright, sees ships leaving for foreign ports from her bustling town on the Bay of Fundy and dreams of seeing the world. When she marries Nathaniel Bradstock, a veteran sea captain, she believes she will sail at his side. But when she becomes pregnant she is forced to stay behind. Her father has built the couple a gabled house overlooking the bay, but the gift cannot shelter her from the loneliness of living without her husband. When Azuba becomes embroiled in scandal, Nathaniel is forced to take her and their daughter, Carrie, aboard his ship. They set sail for London with bitter hearts.

Their voyage is ill-fated, beset with ferocious storms and unforeseen obstacles that test Azuba's compassion, courage, and love. Alone in a male world, surrounded by the splendour and the terror of the open seas, she must face her fears and fight to keep her family together.


Rodin's Debutante
Ward Just

Fiction. Tommy Ogden, a Gatsbyesque character living in a mansion outside robber-baron-era Chicago, declines to give his wife the money to commission a bust of herself from the French master Rodin and announces instead his intention to endow a boys’ school. Ogden’s decision reverberates years later in the life of Lee Goodell, whose coming of age is at the heart of Ward Just’s emotionally potent new novel.


One of Our Thursdays is Missing
Jasper Fforde

Fiction. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the Realworld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.

The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.


365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy
James Delingpole

Non-Fiction. Are Liberals Annoying the Heck Out of You? Well now you can fight back—every single day—with James Delingpole’s handy new guide of jokes, facts, arguments, and even outrageous rumors to spread that will have your liberal acquaintances recoiling in horror—and maybe even just possibly reconsidering their opinions. Need something to brighten your day and darken a liberal’s? Look no further. This is the book for you!

As always, if you see something you like, simply reserve it using our catalog.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Weekly New Books

We have another batch of new books for you to read! This week, we got mostly fiction, so maybe there will be something you like. All the summaries are from Goodreads.


One Night in Scotland
Karen Hawkins

A mysterious abductor . . . Someone is holding her brother prisoner in exchange for a gold-and-onyx box covered in mysterious runes, so Mary Hurst boldly sets out from the family vicarage to find the priceless artifact. But the man who possesses it, Angus Hay, the Earl of Erroll, is less than sympathetic to her plight.

A forbidding stranger . . . Himself a prisoner of his dark past, Angus refuses to yield the box—or allow Mary to leave! Suspicious of the alluring lass’s mission, he vows to wrest a confession from her, but unearths a fiery temper and a will as strong as his own.

An unbreakable curse . . . Passion flares between them, but now there is more at stake: an unknown enemy is hunting down the precious box, and will stop at nothing. Risking all for love, Angus must solve the mystery behind the runes . . . and trust the only woman who can awaken his forgotten heart.


Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry: Stories
Christine Sneed

Stories that explore the tragicomic aspects of romantic love.


The Underbelly
Gary Phillips

Providing insight on homelessness, political corruption, and the potential effects of gentrification, this urban noir tells the tough story of Magrady, a semi-homeless Vietnam veteran in Los Angeles. As he searches for a friend who has gone missing from Skid Row and who may be involved in a dangerous scheme, Magrady must deal with take-no-prisoners community organizers, an unflinching cop from his past, frequent flashbacks of war, an elderly sexpot, the drug culture, and the perils of chili cheese fries at midnight. A rollicking interview with the author wherein he discusses ghetto literature, politics, noir and the proletariat, and the unknown future of books, is also included.


Shadow Pass
Sam Eastland

He operates in the shadows of one of history’s most notorious regimes. He seeks the truth in a nation where finding it can mean death—or worse. His name his Inspector Pekkala, and this time he’s taking on a case with implications far deadlier than anything he can imagine: a shattering revelation that was never meant to be unearthed.

Its official name is T-34, and this massive and mysterious new weapon is being developed in total secrecy in the Russian countryside, a thirty-ton killing machine. Its inventor, Colonel Rolan Nagorski, is a rogue genius whose macabre death is considered an accident only by the innocent.

And Josef Stalin is no innocent. Suspecting assassins everywhere, he brings in his best—if least obedient—detective to solve a murder that’s tantamount to treason. Answerable to no one, Pekkala has the dictator’s permission to go anywhere and interrogate anyone. But in Soviet Russia that’s easily a death sentence. The closer Pekkala gets to the answers, the more questions he uncovers—first and foremost, why is the state’s most dreaded female operative, Commissar Major Lysenkova, investigating the case when she’s only assigned to internal affairs?

Pekkala is on a collision course not only with the Soviet secret police but the USSR’s deepest military secrets. For what he is about to learn could put Stalin and his Communist state under for good—and bury Pekkala with them.

If you'd like to put any of these titles on hold, just go to our catalog.