This Week's Featured New Books

Hello, everyone! More new books arrived at the branch this week. Here are a few of them that you might enjoy.


Bad dog : a love story
by Martin Kihn

636.7 KIHN (New Book Area). A true story. Meet Hola. She’s a nightmare, but it’s not her fault if she tackles strangers and chews on furniture, or if she runs after buses and fried chicken containers and drug dealers. No one ever told her not to. Worse yet, she scares her family. Hola may be the most beautiful Bernese mountain dog in the world, but she’s never been trained. At least not by anyone who knew what he was doing.

Hola’s supposed master, Marty, is a high-functioning alcoholic. A TV writer turned management consultant, Marty’s in debt and out of shape; he’s about to lose his job, and one day he emerges from a haze of peach-flavored vodka to find he’s on the verge of losing his wife, Gloria, too, if he can’t get his life—and his dog—under control.

Desperately trying to save his marriage, Marty throws himself headlong into the world of competitive dog training. Unfortunately, he knows even less than Hola, the only dog ever to be expelled from her puppy preschool twice. Somehow, together, they need to get through the American Kennel Club’s rigorous Canine Good Citizen test. Of course, Hola first needs to learn how to sit.

It won’t be easy. It certainly won’t be pretty. But maybe, just maybe, there will be cheesecake.
--- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group


The science of kissing : what our lips are telling us
by Sheril Kirshenbaum

394 KIRSHENB (New Book Area). From a noted science journalist comes a wonderfully witty and fascinating exploration of how and why we kiss. Drawing upon classical history, evolutionary biology, psychology, popular culture, and more, Kirshenbaum's winning book will appeal to romantics and armchair scientists alike.


Super species : the creatures that will dominate the planet
by Garry Hamilton

578.62 HAMILTON (New Book Area). A gripping examination of invasive species' impact. Super species are the phenomenally successful invasive life-forms that are dominating ecosystems. These animals, plants and microbes have spread far from their native habitats, most often as a result of human activities. The key to super species' success is their ability to adapt quickly. Super species may be unusually aggressive, difficult to kill, unfazed by the presence and activity of humans, capable of astonishingly rapid rates of growth and reproduction, exceptionally tolerant of pollution or, in many cases, all of the above! Author Garry Hamilton profiles the 20 super species that are having the greatest impact in our world today, including: Feral pigs-- relentless boars that are trampling across Europe, North America and Australia Bullfrogs -- predatory amphibians that are endangering native frog populations Jellyfish -- spineless wonders that are dominating the world's oceans C. difficile -- potentially deadly microbes that flourish in human intestines Brown tree snakes -- unusually vicious reptiles that have overrun Guam and are now infiltrating America Argentine ants -- aggressive insects capable of forming super-colonies spanning thousands of miles Humboldt squid -- gigantic beasts that hunt in packs of several hundreds The author also examines the opposing views of top ecologists who are studying this global phenomenon. While some of these experts view invasive species as a threat to biodiversity that costs humans millions of dollars, others believe these creatures may simply be nature's way of restoring ecological vibrancy in the wake of human-mediated destruction. Whether good or bad, the life-forms in Super Species are the current winners in nature's ruthless process of natural selection. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

This Week's Featured New Books

Sorry. We're running a little behind this week, but we have another batch of new books for you to read! As always, all the summaries are from Goodreads.


What You See in the Dark
Manuel Munoz

Fiction. Bakersfield, California, in the late 1950s is a dusty, quiet town too far from Los Angeles to share that city’s energy yet close enough to Hollywood to fill its citizens with the kinds of dreams they discover in the darkness of the movie theater. For Teresa, a young, aspiring singer who works at a shoe store, dreams lie in the music her mother shared with her, plaintive songs of love and longing. In Dan Watson, the most desirable young man in Bakersfield, she believes she has found someone to help her realize those dreams.

When a famous actress arrives from Hollywood with a great and already legendary director, local gossip about Teresa and Dan gives way to speculation about the celebrated visitors, there to work on what will become an iconic, groundbreaking film of madness and murder at a roadside motel. No one anticipates how the ill-fated love affair between Dan and Teresa will soon rival anything the director could ever put on the screen.


The Baby Planner
Josie Brown

Fiction. Katie Johnson may make her living consulting with new moms on the latest greatest baby gadgets no parent should be without, or which mommy meet-ups are the most socially desirable, or whether melon truly is the new black, but the success of her marriage to her husband, Alex, depends on controlling her own urges toward motherhood.

He's adamant that they stay childless. Sure, Katie understands that he's upset over the fact that his out-of-town ex-wife rarely lets him see their ten-year-old son, Peter. But living vicariously through her anxious clients and her twin sisters' precocious children only makes Katie resent his stance more deeply.

While helping a new client—Seth Harris, a high tech entrepreneur who must raise Sadie, his newborn daughter, as a single parent after the tragic death of his wife in childbirth—maneuver the bittersweet journey from mourning husband and reticent father to loving dad, Katie’s own ideals about love, marriage, and motherhood are put to the test as she learns ones very important lesson about family: How we nurture is the true nature of love.

The Vampire Voss
Colleen Gleason

Fiction. Regency London – a dizzying whirl of balls and young ladies pursued by charming men.

But the Woodmore sisters are hunted by a more sinister breed: Lucifer's own.

Voss, also known as Viscount Dewhurst, relishes the sensual pleasures immortality affords. A member the Dracule – a cabal of powerful, secretive noblemen marked with a talisman that reveals their bartered souls – the mercenary Voss has remained carefully neutral ... until Angelica.

Angelica Woodmore possess the Sight, an ability invaluable to both sides of a looming war among the Dracule. Her very scent envelops Voss in a scarlet fog of hunger – for her body and her blood. But he is utterly unprepared for the new desire that overcomes him – to protect her.

Now Voss must battle his very nature to be with Angelica ... but this vampire never backs down from a fight.


The New Southern Garden Cookbook
Sheri Castle

Non-Fiction. This book offers over 300 brightly flavored recipes that will inspire beginning and experienced cooks, southern or otherwise, to take advantage of seasonal delights. Castle has organized the cookbook alphabetically by type of vegetable or fruit, building on the premise that when cooking with fresh produce, the ingredient, not the recipe, is the wiser starting point. While some dishes are inspired by traditional southern recipes, many reveal the goodness of gardens in new, contemporary ways. Peppered with tips, hints, and great stories, these pages make for good food and a good read.


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