Friday, January 25, 2008

Four Fiction

At The City's Edge by Marcus Sakey. Jason returned from Iraq with an "other than honroable" discharge. He's having trouble getting back into Chicago's civilian life when his brother is murdered. Jason and Elena from the City's Gang Intelligence Unit both find themselves in peril.

Hunter's Run by George R.R. Martin and others. I bought this because Martin is a popular author.

Releasing January 29th

Purrfect Murder by Rita Mae Brown.

The Appeal by John Grisham.

Sound and Vision (apologies to Bowie)

Music CDs - there are more titles waiting on new CD cases to arrive.

High School Musical 2: non-stop dance party. Dance remixes from the second movie. In the kid section.

High School Musical 2: soundtrack. The original soundtrack, also downstairs.

American Gangster by Jay-Z. Rapper dude raps. I'm not sure if I've heard any of his tunes or not.

Double Wide and Live by Southern Culture on the Skids (SCOTS). SCOTS is known for being a live band. I've never seen them live so I figured I'd buy this one. I have Dirt Track Date sitting around if anyone wants to borrow it.

Definitive Collection, 1983-1987 by Steve Earle. Lake Mills does NOT have this collection by roots rocker Earle. But, you can reserve it on our catalog and Germantown Public Library will send it over. How does a fat, balding, old, junkie like Earle get a pretty, young wife like Allison Moorer? Earle has a radio show on Sirius satellite radio and, I just found out, has a small role on HBO's The Wire.

DVD

Blonde Ambition starring Jessica Simpson, Luke Wilson, Andy Dick. Judging from the back cover's synopsis this is a remake of Legally Blonde. Ditzy Oklahoma blonde visits boyfriend in New York. Blonde finds boyfriend with other girl. Blonde gets big job and new boyfriend as "revenge".

GamePlan starring Dwayne Johnson, Kyra Sedgewick, NFL quaterback with massive ego is suddenly saddled with his previously unknown 8-year-old daughter.

Inside Man starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe. A highly planned bank robbery falls apart into a hostage situation.

Once. Once is on several best of the year lists for 2007. Follows an Irish guitarist and keyboardist who spontaneously team up for a week and write songs together.

Oswald's Ghost. "How could someone as inconsequential as Lee Harvey oswald have killed someone as consequential as John F. Kennedy?" Forty years of obsession over the assassination is studied by PBS' American Experience.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

It Never Ends, More NonFiction

Guns

Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery, 6th Edition by Massad Ayoob. From basic to advanced with information on weapons, ammunition, holsters, mistakes, etc. I'd love to take a look at Ayoob's personal firearms collection, I'll bet it is extensive.

Screaming Eagles: 101st Airborne Division by Russ and Susan Bryant. We have an 8-year-old Devourer of Books who was in the other day checking out books on Army Rangers. So I bought this one.

Local History

People, Their Places, and Things by Roland R. Liebenow, M.D. Some scumbags have stolen our other two copies of this. This copy goes into Reference.

Everything Else

2008 Writer's Market edited by Robert Lee Brewer. Sell your work.

Complete Reflexology Tutor: Everything you need to achieve professional expertise by Ann Gillanders.

Easy Massage by Fiona Harrold. A compact book.

Wiring: step-by-step instructions by Larry Johnston.

Drying Flowers by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers.

Making Wreaths by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers.

Decorating Hints and Tips: more than 2,000 practical solutions to help you improve your home by Julian Cassell and Peter Parham. Another DK book.

Peterson's College Money Handbook 2008. Aid packages from over 2,000 undergraduate institutions.

Peterson's Make Summer Count 2008: programs ans camps for teens and kids. Girls First at Madeiara School in Virginia is $2395 for two weeks.

Curious Boys Book of Adventure: 100 hijinks and escapades by Sam Martin. Making a catapult, a wooden whistle, a pinhole camera, an igloo, a telephone.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

I'm Finally Running Out of New Stuff to Write About

NonFiction

Helen Farnsworth Mears by Susan Porter Green. A biography of the Wisconsin sculptor. I found this stuck on a high shelf in a back room. The book was donated in 1996 and never cataloged until last week.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Video by Karl Bardosh. "Focus in on the future of moviemaking."

Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh's story was told in Freakonomics. Venkatesh was a graduate student when he visited a Chicago housing project with a multi-part survey on urban poverty. Venkatesh enters an abandoned building and is immediately taken captive by a local drug gang who suspect his intentions. Venkatesh ends up making friends with the gang leader and observes the gang and neighborhood for the next ten years.

What to do With Your History or Political Science Degree by Sarah Dunham and Lisa Vollmer. Please tell me. I majored in both of those.

Smart Hiring: the complete guide to finding and hiring the best employees by Robert Wendover. Here is a tip from my own personal experience: Want to avoid bad employees? First things first and hire a good one. Includes: interview questions, resume evaluation, recruitment and advertising, etc.

Quickbooks 2008: the official guide by Kathy Ivens. Since our previous version checked out like mad this one should be popular.

Green Bay Packers: the complete illustrated history by Don Gulbrandsen. What else is there to say that is not in the title?

Quilting a Patchwork Garden by Lynette Jensen. Quilting.

AudioBook on CD

How Starbucks Saved My Life: a son of privilege learns to live like everyone else by Michael Gates Gill. Gill was a divorced, laid off, former six-figure earning, brain tumor carrying, pregnant girlfriend dating dude whose sole luxury was a daily latte at Starbucks. One day the manager asked if he wanted a job and he accepted.

Subject Heading: Cookery

Cookbooks

Party Fun! by Jenny Dodd. For kid parties with themes, cakes, invitations, treat bags, food, games. I'll take this one home for Saturday's birthday party.

Dinnertime Easy Slow Cooker Recipes edited by Lois White. Slow cooker directions for appetizers, beverages, soups/stews, meat, poultry, small batches, desserts. From Better Homes and Gardens.

The New Slow Cooker edited by Jennifer Olski. Same items as above but this book is from Taste of Home.

The Good Housekeeping Cookbook: 1,039 recipes from America's favorite test kitchen edited by Susan Westmoreland. From Good Housekeeping.

Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2008 edited by Heather Averett. Editors' favorites from Cooking Light.

Four More Fiction Including a Bill Crider Recommendation

Fiction

Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. Queen Elizabeth chases her corgis into a bookmobile and feels obligated to borrow a book. The Queen starts to read widely and finds her world view changed and her Royal routines questioned which "soon leads to surprising and very funny consequences for the country at large."

Notes From the Backseat by Jody Gehrman. Gwen travels to a wedding with her boyfriend Coop and his best friend, Devil Blonde Dannika. The normally confident Gwen goes "psycho jealous".

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. Based on a Nordic fairy tale. A woodcutter's daughter agrees to live with a polar bear for one year in exchange for wealth for her family.

School for Scumbags by Danny King. Teenage delinquent Wayne ends up in yet another school. But the Gafin School for Misdirected Boys seems intent on teaching the wrong things. Crider has a good write-up.

Graphic Novels

Vampire Hunting

Guilty Pleasures, Volume One
by Laurell K. Hamilton with Brett Booth, Stacie M. Ritchie and Jess Ruffner-Booth. "In a world where vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures are legal citizens of the United States, Anita Blake is an animator - someone who literally raises the dead for a living. But she moonlights as a vampire hunter, called in to resolve situations that are too much for conventional police to handle." I think Hamilton is one of those prose authors who add lots of sex to the vampire violence. I looked for sex stuff in this one but found nothing good.

Four HellBoy Titles
Troll Witch and Others
Strange Places
Right Hand of Doom
Conqueror Worm

Hellboy is demon who was brought to Earth as an infant by the Nazis in 1944. Hellboy was raised by the U.S. Army and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. With red skin, stumps on his head from his filed down horns, and a tail Hellboy works as an unflappable investigator of paranormal threats. A fun series.

Large Print Fiction by the Dozen (minus four)

Large Print

Power Play by Joseph Finder. The executives of Hammond Aerospace are attending a retreat in a remote lodge. Their opening night dinner is taken over by gunmen intent on ransoming the lot of them. Junior Exec Jake Landry's mysterious past comes to the rescue.

Robert Ludlum's The Arctic Event by James H. Cobb. Lt. Col. John Smith searches Wednesday Island in Northern Canada to recover a spy plane with weaponized anthrax. Also searching are an arms merchant and the Russians.

The McKettrick Way by Linda Lael Miller. Meg McKettrick wants a kid but not necessarily a husband. Meg and neighboring cowboy Brad are attracted to one another but Brad wants marriage and family together.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz with Janet Mills. This is NonFiction not Fiction. Some sort of self-help book on "the self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy."

The Vanishing Act of Lesme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. I think we have the regular print version of this. Iris gets a phone call saying her great-aunt Esme is being released from her mental institution after 60 years and would she please come pick her up? "I have a great aunt?" Esme replies. Why was she locked up? Why was Iris never told of Esme? Why was Esme forgotten there?

Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn. I'll take a guess at this one. There is a threat to the country by terrorists or traitors. Federal officials - either Special Forces, CIA or lawyers - fight the enemy against their own bureaucratic and shortsighted leaders. There is a beautiful, brave and plucky woman character.

A Time to Die by Beverly Barton. Deke shot and paralyzed Lexie during an African coup. Deke was a soldier working undercover and his guilt follows him after retirement to his job at Dundee Private Security. Lexie now heads an international charity when the son of a coup leader threatens her. Deke is hired to protect her.

Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Is this the lady who lives in Madison? Yep, it is.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Four Fun Fiction Favorites For Favorable Fans

Fiction

Sizzle and Burn by Jane Ann Krentz. Paranormal woman in romance.

Duma Key by Stephen King. Suffering from King Bloat at 607 pages.

Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky. "Nothing will break the mother-daughter bond. Not even the truth." Girl drives over guy in street, mom takes the rap.

Sword Song : the Battle for London by Bernard Cornwell. Cornwell's latest covers the 885 Battle for London between Danes and Saxons.

NonFiction: Beer Book, Landscaping, Business, a Minnesotan

NonFiction

Beer

Beer by Michael Jackson. Famous beer and whiskey writer Jackson died this past August. Jackson's beer and whiskey books from DK are always beatifully illustrated and full of interesting info about both readily available and rare brews. Jackson even wrote an article on Wisoncsin beer for his website. Tyranena is not listed in the book but New Glarus and Huber are. The book even has the the updated web address reflecting the new Canuck owner.

Health

Everything Health Guide to Arthritis by Carol Eustice. "Professional advice on managing pain, choosing the right treatment, and leading an active lifestyle."

Dealing with Food Allergies in Babies and Children by Janice Vickerstaff Joneja, PhD, RD. Descritpions strategies, detailed information, essential nutrients.

Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child by Alan E Kazdin, PhD. Kazdin directs the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic and has distilled 30 years of Center experience into this guide.

Is It a Big Problem or a Little Problem?: When to Worry, When Not to Worry, and What to Do by Amy Egan, MA, et al.

School Success for Kids with Asperger's Syndrome by Stephan M. Silverman, PhD and Rich Weinfeld. Practical strategies for parents and teachers, classroom practices, parental advice, successfull interventions for parents.

Self-Help Skills for People with Autism: a systemic teaching approach by Stephen R. Anderson, PhD, et al.

Minnesotan

Dog Says How by Kevin Kling. Humorous true stories by the actor and NPR commentator. Well fancy that, he attended Gustavus.

Business

Freelancing for Newspapers: writing for an overlooked market by Sue Fagalde Lick. All newspapers rely on freelancers to provide stories. Learn how to break into the market.

101 Businesses You Can Start with Less Than One Thousand Dollars For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads by Heather L. Shepherd.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, Third Edition by Barbara Weltman.

Knock'em Dead, 2008 by Martin Yate, C.P.C. "The ultimate job search guide."

History

Miniature Books: 4,000 or tiny treasures by Anne C. Bromer and Julian I. Edison. Extensively illustrated with color photos of miniature books through time.

Indian Mutiny by Julian Spilsbury. The Indian mutiny of 1857 by Indian soldiers who slaughtered their English officers and families. A read a novelization of this, Nightrunners of Bengal by John Masters, that spoke about the split among the Indian soldiers and how the mutiny was planned and enacted.

Boom!: voices of the sixties by Tom Brokaw.

Other

Sound of Music Companion by Laurence Maslon. The family, the stage version, the motion picture.

Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter by Tere Stouffer.

52 Backyard Landscaping Projects by Kristen Hampshire.