Six Years

Six Years
By Harlen Coben
Dutton, 2013.  351 pgs.  Mystery

Jake Fisher meets Natalie when they are both attending artistic/scholarly retreats during a summer in Vermont. They fall madly in love, but at the end of the summer Natalie suddenly dumps Jake and marries another man. Jake is devastated--and confused.  He knows the feelings were reciprocal, but he promises Natalie he will leave the new couple alone. Six years later when he sees and obituary for Natalie's husband he attends the funeral, only to discover that Todd's grieving wife is not Natalie, and that everyone he talks to about her either can't remember her, pretends she doesn't exist, or doesn't have any idea where she might be. Because Jake can't let things alone, he is kidnapped, beaten, shot at, and threatened within an inch of his and Natalie's lives. But he can't leave things lay, so he eventually finds himself cornered by an international secret organization, a local and very frightening version of the mafiosa, and his own lost love.  Six Years is a quick and gripping read, hard to put down before all the puzzle pieces are finally slotted into place.  It is also plagued here and there by inconsistencies and illogical elements.  For instance, if you were going to take a 6'5" man hostage, would you really be able to grab him around the neck and put a gun to his head?  would you have to stand on a picnic table to do it, or jump up and down?  Also, Jake's feelings for his one true love are sometimes extra-mushy in their expression. Still, Six Years is sitting comfortably atop the New York Times bestseller list and it is a ripsnorter if you need a couple of hours away from your real life, for whatever reason.

LW

Storm Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers

Storm Kings:  The Untold History of America's First Storm Chasers
by Lee Sandlin
Pantheon, 2013.  266 pgs.  Nonfiction.

Waterspouts in the Old World, with a few forays onto land, provide the earliest accounts of tornadic activity.  In the New World, the first tornado was sighted near Cambridge, Massachusetts by a farmer named Samuel Stone who passed the information along to Puritan preacher Increase Mather who saved the account in his collection of Illustrious Providences, later read by Benjamin Franklin who was also much interested in meteorological activity. Correspondence with European scientists (i.e., natural philosophers) ensued and theories began to emerge as to the nature of cyclonic storms.  Early practitioners believed the storms were caused by electricity in the air. James Espy, an amateur meterologist, concluded that the storms arose because of a pressure and temperature differentials between the lower and upper atmospheres but refused to believe the storms twisted or spun, though damage patterns on the ground clearly revealed the cyclonic movement. The greatest tornado expert of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was James Park Finley who served with the Army Signal Corps and relentlessly visited storm sites, studied pre-storm atmospheric conditions, and published a book which became the starting point for much of future research and knowledge about tornadoes.  But because he was not an academic, he and his ideas were marginalized and wrongheadedness prevailed.  For instance, the military refused to share its tornado forecasts with the general public for fear of inspiring panic.  Sandlin also describes in often horrifying detail the terrible tornado strikes that impelled action by the military and the government:  the Peshtigo fire tornado which burned the silicates out of the soil and rained them down as glass, the Tri-States tornado with a damage track of 219 miles, and the Great Tornado Outbreaks of 1974, 1999, and 2011. Thousands of lives were lost with property damage in the billions. Lee Sandlin is a deeply engaging prose stylist and his book reads better than a novel in many respects.  Notes are appended but, alas, no index.

LW

The Uses of Adversity

The Uses of Adversity
by Carlfred Broderick
Deseret Book, 2008.  58 pgs. Nonfiction

LDS readers could scarcely find a better text about the place of suffering in mortality, nor better intellectual as well as spiritual resources for dealing with adversity. Dr. Broderick, with degrees from Harvard and Cornell, was a professor of sociology and the head of the marriage and family therapy program at USC, and a past president of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists before he passed away in 1999.  His book is painful, beautiful, and  funny.  With self-deprecating humor he describes his own attempts as a professional counselor and stake president to help others come to terms with the griefs and injustices of life. He neither hides behind the notion that bad things are good for us if we have the proper perspective, nor that pain, injustice, and loss are necessarily ennobling. ". . . I do not want you to think that I believe anything good about pain," he says. "I hate pain.  I hate injustice.  I hate loss.  I hate all the things we all hate. . . .  I want to discuss how to encounter that pain in such a way that it does not destroy you, how to find profit in that awful and unrewarding experience."  Dr. Broderick is fierce in his caring about those in trouble, and as fiercely filled with faith about the help that he believes is available to all.  The Uses of Adversity is a thoughtful, memorable book, addressing questions it would be insulting to try to answer too glibly.

LW

Shadowfell

Shadowfell
By Juliet Marillier
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 410 pgs. Young Adult Fantasy

Neryn is the only member of her family left, in a land ruled by an oppressive king. He has ordered anyone with magical powers to be brought to him and Neryn has known from a young age that she has always had an ability to communicate with the Fey-like creatures that live in Alban. Her only hope is to try to make it to Shadowfell, a rebel camp, that is rumored to be located deep in the mountains.  Along the way she comes in contact with a man named Flint, but in a land ruled by fear she is not sure if it is possible to trust him even if it might mean her survival.

Juliet Marillier is a wonderful storyteller and I really enjoyed this book. The plot moves very slowly, but I still found myself staying up late to finish. This is the first book in a planned trilogy and I look forward to discovering what comes next for Neryn as she begins to discover her true destiny.

AL

Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth
by Ian McEwan
Nan A. Talese, 2012. 301 pgs. Fiction

Serena, a young, gorgeous MI-5 employee with a Cambridge maths degree, is recruited for operation ‘sweet tooth’: a secret pro-capitalist propaganda operation. Still just a woman in 1970’s England, Serena’s only part in this mission is ensuring that T. H. Haley, a young writer, accepts the government funding and agrees to write a novel. It turns out that Serena and Haley have an undeniable attraction for each other, and their affair quickly grows complicated under the layers of lying and deceit. 

Though this book was widely proclaimed as one of the ‘best reads of 2012’, it really didn’t grow on me until the final few pages. It’s technically a spy novel, but the spying is too guilt-ridden and subtle to make up for the plot’s plodding pace. The ending is one of those respectable, intellectual, surprising ones that changes your whole perspective on the book. While this sort of ending is excellent in its own way, it does mean that most of the enjoyment comes not from the actual reading experience, but instead from reflecting on the book after it is already over. A worthwhile novel for patient readers. 

-JM

Ghostman

Ghostman
by Roger Hobbs
Knopf, 2013.  321 pgs.  Mystery

Jack (for the moment, and with shifting last names) is a bad, bad man, but more along the lines of an anti-hero rather than a truly evil man.  He has robbed banks, armored cars, and pretty much anything with money in it.  He doesn't like to kill people unless he has to, but "it's not as bad as you might think." But Jack's specialty is as a ghostman, someone who cleans up messes, makes people disappear who need to disappear, is off-the-grid invisible himself and helps others take it on the lam as well.  Marcus Hayes, on the other hand, is truly wicked and as our story begins, asks Jack to clean up a major mess made when two of his men rob an armored car at a casino entrance, are ambushed, but make it away with  the loot . . . and a federal payload timed to explode in 48 hours. On the other side of this scary equation is The Wolf, an even worse guy than Marcus, who is also after the money which was taken in his territory. How Jack plays both sides against each other, and also manages to save his own miserable hide,  is the thread of this richly entertaining, breakneck, intellectual thriller.  This book is a sweet, fast ride through a very violent theme park.  Beware.

LW

Heat: Adventures in the World's Fiery Places

Heat:  Adventures in the World's Fiery Places
by Bill Streever
Little, Brown and Company, 2013.  349 pgs.  Nonfiction

Bill Streever is not a spotlight-seeking man. He is so reticent, in fact, that his jacket photo doesn't show his face. But he is not shy about burning his hand in a candle flame, or firewalking for 15 feet, or stirring around in a lava flow with a carpenter's hammer, all in pursuit of an encyclopedic variety of experiences with heat. Following (logically) his previous bestseller (Cold:  Adventures in the World's Frozen Places), Streever travels from Death Valley to the peat bogs of the Netherlands to the defunct oil fields of Pennsylvania, considering the nature of heat and its sources. The sun itself comes into play here, as does the Brookfield supercollider, and Mauna Loa, earth's largest volcano. My favorite story is of the refinery worker who named his son Carbon Dubbs.  Carbon, second-generation refinery worker, was so besotted with oil production that he gave himself the middle name of Petroleum and named his daughters Methyl and Ethyl. It doesn't get better than that. Nor do information books get much better than this one.

LW

100 Years of Comic Strips

100 Years of Comic Strips
edited by Bill Blackbeard, Dale Crain, and James Vance
Barnes & Noble Books, 2004 (reprint edition).  479 pgs.  Nonfiction.

Originally published in 1994 as two books, 100 Years of  Comic Strips doesn't have any brand new comic strips in it, but it does have a wealth of old ones.  So if you are of an age to have read and enjoyed Pogo, Krazy Kat, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers, and L'il Abner this is a great book.  With nostalgia comes American history, of course, which includes considerable insensitivity to blacks and Asians.  This book will make you glad we have grown up some.  It will also make you glad for the comics, for all the laughs and the mysteries (who is Mary Worth, anyway?  and who cares?).  Or Terry and the Pirates.  Does anyone know what was going on there?  Or who knew that Dr. Seuss did a syndicated comic strip called Hejji?  Some fun. And one of the best access points of all to American (popular) history.

Odd Apocalypse

Odd Apocalypse
By Dean Koontz
Bantam Books, 2012. 355 pgs. Fiction

Odd Thomas, the boy who sees the ghosts of the dead, continues his adventures in Odd Apocalypse. While traveling with the mysterious and very pregnant Annamaria, Odd finds himself a houseguest at Roseland, an opulent estate owned by a reclusive billionaire. As usual, Odd attracts the attention of a local unhappy spirit, this time in the form of a beautiful woman astride an equally impressive horse. Her silent pleas for help lead Odd on a dangerous and unexpected journey into a world where reality is uncertain and basic truths are called into question.

Odd continues to be an endearing character, though this new adventure was not my favorite. I keep wanting to see more development to his character and story. Maybe we’ll see that in his continuing adventures.

CZ

The Descendents

The Descendents
By Kaui Hart Hemmings
Random House, 2011. 297 pgs. Fiction

The King family descended from Hawaiian royalty and remains one of the largest landowners in the state. That may all change if Matthew, who wields the deciding vote in the family trust business dealings, decides to sell a large portion of his family's legacy to a new development. The stress of this important decision is made more complicated when Matthew’s wife ends up in a coma after a boat-racing accident. As he and his two daughters try to deal with the drama, Matthew will learn a great deal about his wife, his history as a husband and father, and what family is really for.

This book is filled with very weighty issues but surprisingly never gets too dark thanks mainly to Matthew’s feisty ten-year-old daughter, Scottie. Matthew’s narration keeps the tone on the lighter side as he mocks himself and his situation. A brilliant family drama.

CZ

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction

Good Prose:  The Art of Nonfiction
by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd
Random House, 2013.  195 pgs. Nonfiction.

The subtitle of Kidder and Todd's remarkable new book is "stories and advice from a lifetime of writing and editing." They are as good as their word, and their word is very good.  Kidder, who won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1982 for The Soul of a New Machine, and who has written a number of fine articles and books ranging from Among Schoolchildren, a school year long stay in a fifth grade classroom, to House, a narrative history of the building of a home.  Todd is Kidder's no less gifted editor and the two team up to deliver an amiable, readable, remarkable editorial, if you will, on why good writing is such hard work, but why that work is worth it.

LW

Kingdom of Strangers

Kingdom of Strangers (Katya #3)
By Zoe Ferraris
Little Brown and Company, 2012, 363 pgs. Mystery

A woman’s body discovered in a desert sand dune outside Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, leads to the discovery that a serial killer has been systematically killing women for more than ten years. His victims are the most vulnerable in Saudi society, women who have come to the Kingdom to work as maids for wealthy families. When they disappear everyone assumes they have run away so they are rarely reported missing. Even identifying the bodies is nearly impossible. As Katya works on the serial murder case, the distraught head of the homicide department comes to her for help in finding his missing mistress – a crime which he can’t possibly report since adultery is illegal in Arabia.

In this third in the series of mysteries featuring Katya, a forensic specialist, and Nayir, her fiancée, Ferraris gradually reveals the horrific murders and simultaneously introduces the reader to the complex and frightening realities of life in the Kingdom for expatriate workers. And Katya, too, offers the reader a view into the difficulties of life for Saudi women. Recommended for mystery readers looking for a complicated plot in a highly unusual setting. SH

The Expats

The Expats
By Chris Pavone
Crown, 2012, 326 pgs. Fiction

Kate has quit her job in Washington, D.C., and packed her two children and necessary possessions to follow her husband to Luxembourg. In spite of having traveled a great deal for her previous job, she is having trouble adjusting to life as a full time mom and expat wife. Everything around her somehow seems off-key. What exactly is her husband doing at work and why won’t he tell her more about it? Those other friendly expats, who are they and why are they trying so hard to be friends? And why isn’t she happy when she always thought she’d like to stay home with her children?

Told in alternating chapters that flashback to various times in the past (the present is the smallest part of the action), Kate uncovers layers of secrets and reveals layers of her own secrets. Kate is a flawed protagonist but the European setting is interesting and the secrets keep pulling the reader in. This is a great choice for a female reader who likes spy and mystery novels. I found the ending to be a bit weak but it is probably a set up for a sequel that will continue revealing secrets and tying up loose ends. SH

Perfect Scoundrels

Perfect Scoundrels
By Ally Carter
Disney/Hyperion, 2013. 328 pgs. Young Adult

Kat and Hale have finally started dating, but their relationship hits a rather large snag when Hale's grandmother leaves him her billion-dollar corporation and Kat suspects the will might have been part of an elaborate con. As she and her crew set out to figure out if there's more going on than meets the eye, Kat knows she risks hurting Hale, but she also knows they need to figure out the truth of what's going on--and why.

The third book in the Heist Society series is just as much fun as the first two--and actually maybe a little bit more since we get to see a little more romance between Kat and Hale. As usual, there are lots of twists and turns as the plot moves along, and even though readers can predict that things will work out all right in the end, they'll enjoy the process of seeing just how that happens.

AE

Hysteria

Hysteria
By Megan Miranda
Walker, 2013. 326 pgs. Young Adult


After Mallory killed her boyfriend Brian in self-defense, no one in her town looks at her the same. Brian's mother is stalking her and Mallory can feel his presence as well, although she can't remember all of the details of what happened. Her parents send her off to a boarding school, and things there aren't much better. Although one classmate, Reid, is interested in getting to know her better, everyone else seems to know what happened and either steers clear or makes life harder for her. And Mallory is certain someone is following her, sneaking into her room, and even threatening her. And then something happens that shows Mallory and her classmates might be in more danger than ever.

Holy smokes! This book is one heck of a ride! It's so interesting to follow Mallory as she trying to figure out if she's just experiencing hallucinations or if something is really happening and trying both to remember and to forget what happened the night that Brian died. Absolutely gripping, with a nice little romance angle as well. Highly enjoyable.

AE

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel . . .

No Crystal Stair:  A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller
by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Carolrhoda, 2012.  188 pgs.  Young Adult

Hard to determine the exact best audience for this fine book, a fiction/nonfiction mix about a young black man who started life out as a petty thief, went on to work for his brother's Church ministry, and eventually opened a bookstore in Harlem which carried only books written by or about blacks. Lewis Michaux's vision of the importance of educating black people about their own history and culture led him to establish The National Memorial Bookstore with "five books, a building, and a hundred bucks." From that unpromising beginning Lewis parlayed his business into a store containing hundreds of thousands of books which became, if not the heart and soul, at least the brains of Harlem--poets, civil rights' leaders, kids from the neighborhood, political leaders, all flocked to the store where if you couldn't afford to buy a book, Lewis had a room in the back where you could read whatever you wanted for as long as you wanted.  More than just the story of the Harlem bookstore, No Crystal Stair . . . is the story of Ms. Nelson's family.  Lewis was her great uncle, and the story of his life, juxtaposed with those of his two brothers, one a nationally-known preacher and one a gambling man who later settled down to a factory job to support his family. Names to conjure with from the Civil Rights movement are here:  Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, along with literary figures--Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin. The difficulty with finding an audience for this volume lies primarily with  "kids nowadays" not knowing much about what transpired between the Emancipation Proclamation and now, and where black citizens had to come from and how they got to where we are now--far from perfect, but exponentially better. This is a fine book of historical fiction with lots of history included. An excellent street-level view of the history of race relations in the United States.

LW

Suspect

Suspect
by Robert Crais
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2013.  309 pages.  Mystery

When Maggie, a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd fresh home from Afghanistan and from the loss of her handler, and Scott James, an LAPD officer are teamed up in the K9 Unit, good and frightening things begin to happen for both of them. Scott is back on the force after being severely injured in a shootout that killed his partner and has had to play the compassion card to not be forced into medical retirement. Maggie and Scott are both still in recovery from physical, mental, and emotional wounds but as they train together, and help each other on Scott's still unsolved case, they begin to bond, heal, and make significant progress towards finding the men who killed Scott's partner and nearly killed him. Robert Crais is a bang-up (you'll excuse the expression) writer of police procedurals, never skimping on characterization and setting for action's sake, or vice-versa.  Readers will find themselves cheering and fearing for Scott and Maggie as they draw ever closer to finding the killers and saving their own lives in more ways than one.

LW

Endangered

Endangered
By Eliot Schrefer
Scholastic Press, 2012. 264 pgs. Young Adult

Sophie's mother runs a preserve for bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sophie goes to visit during the summers. Although this year, she's reluctant to visit, she quickly becomes more involved than she's ever been before when she basically adopts a malnourished, mistreated young bonobo, Otto, and essentially becomes his surrogate mother. When the country breaks out in war and the preserve is attacked while her mother is away, Sophie and Otto escape to the jungle, and it's up to Sophie to try to save Otto once again.

Schrefer does a great job portraying a fictitious--and yet entirely plausible--conflict and the way that it affects people. In the midst of that background, he also builds a beautiful relationship between Sophie and Otto, showing their attachment to one another and the difficult decisions Sophie faces as she tries to save Otto, who to most people is only a pet at best or a source of food at worst. Sophie is a strong, smart girl whose determination to save Otto will endear her to readers, and Otto is adorable. This is one that I debated whether or not to read, and upon completion, I'm thrilled that I didn't miss out on a such a wonderful story. There is some off-scene violence and a few descriptions of the repercussions of that violence.

AE

The Maid of Fairbourne Hall

The Maid of Fairbourne Hall
By Julie Klassen
Bethany House, 2011. 414 pgs. Romance

Margaret Macy is set to receive an inheritance on her next birthday, and her stepfather wants to make sure that money stays in the family. Therefore, he's determined that she will marry his lecherous nephew--and tells him to make that happen by any means necessary. To protect herself, Margaret disguises herself as a maid and runs away. She winds up working at Fairbourne Hall--the home of not one but two of her former suitors, Nathaniel and Lewis Upchurch. Having rejected Nathaniel in favor of Lewis, only to have Lewis's interest wane, Margaret is desperate not to have either man recognize her and to maintain her disguise until her birthday comes. But as she's working in their home, she can't help but make new observations about both men and make an important discovery about her own heart.

I've read a few of Julie Klassen's books, and I liked this one the best. Both Margaret and her male counterpart (I'll leave it to you to see which brother gets to play the love interest) are likable and the plot line was interesting. Very enjoyable.

AE

My Ideal Bookshelf

My Ideal Bookshelf
Art by Jane Mount; edited by Thessaly La Force
Little, Brown and Company, 2012.  226 pgs.  Nonfiction

Mount and LaForce's book is simple in concept and great fun in its realization.  They approached over 100 creative people--writers, designers, musicians, cartoonists, dancers,  graphic artists, and chefs (interesting) to share a shelf of books that "represent you . . . your favorite favorites." The results are sometimes predictable but mostly fascinating and sometimes funky.  Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, chose the score of Mahler's Ninth Symphony as one of his favorites; Stephenie Meyer's picked Little Women, Jane Eyre, and several other counterintuitive-to-vampires titles; more participants than you can possibly imagine chose Anton Chekhov's short stories, and, in fact, Francine Prose's entire bookshelf is Chekhov, bookended by characters from Where the Wild Things Are.  Even the Hardy Boys and volumes from Childcraft find place here, as do a sparkling sufficiency of titles we can add to our own To Read and To Reread lists. Almost all the respondents are from the West or East coasts, but the unwashed masses of the rest of the country may participate as well because the book's creators have also included a "My Ideal Bookshelf" template which you can copy, color in your own favorite spines-o-books, and send scans or photos to idealbookshelf.com.  Some fun!

LW

The Fish That Ate the Whale: the Life and Times of America's Banana King

The Fish That Ate the Whale:  the Life and Times of America's Banana King
By Rich Cohen
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.  270 pgs.  Biography

Sam Zemurray is not exactly a household name.  Read this book and you will know the story of the persevering, penniless immigrant who became one of America's most complex, richest and politically powerful men of the early 1900's.  From his first sighting of the curious yellow fruit piled on the dock, to his last years, his life was consumed with the banana.  Zemurray's political control extended from the United States through Central America, along the way over throwing governments, influencing Foreign Policy, reinventing the banana industry and finally taking control of his rival, the powerful conglomerate United Fruit Company.

Sam, the Banana Man had the impellent desire to succeed...no matter the cost.

I highly recommend The Fish That Ate the Whale to anyone interested in well researched biographies, early 1900 American business or those curious about the history of the "fruit worth killing for."

MPB

Road Trip

Road Trip
By Gary Paulsen and Jim Paulsen
Wendy Lamb Books, 2013. 114 pgs. Young Adult


At 5 a.m., fourteen-year-old Ben's father tells him to wake up and get in the truck; they're going on a road trip to pick up a border collie from a shelter before his time runs out. They hit the road, along with Atticus, the border collie they already have, and soon manage to pick up a cranky mechanic, a reformed thug friend of Ben's, and a waitress who just quit her job, as well as a new vehicle--a school bus. On their way to rescue the dog, they find themselves mixed up in an adventure, with a hint of a mystery.

This book is short and sweet. It's a quick read with quirky characters who are absolutely lovable, and the best part might just be that it's a dog story where the dogs don't die. Delightful. I loved it.

AE

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs
by Walter Isaacson
Simon and Schuster, 2011. 630 pgs. Non-fiction

Steve Jobs is regarded as one of the giants, if not the most celebrated individuals, in the tech world. Given the outsized and celebrated public personality of Steve Jobs, the author did a good job to draw a well rounded, honest and fair illustration of his subject. Like many other entrepreneur/innovator/leader types of the past, Jobs possessed a combination of arrogance, insight and charisma that both enabled him to transform his industry and society and caused some of his personal and public failures. He could be mercurial, temperamental and regarded everyone as either a genius or a "bozo". However, his combination of charisma, relentless pursuit of excellence and not a bit of luck enabled him to create innovative, well designed products and content. The world was changed with the advent of the Macintosh, the Iphone/pod/pad products as well as the highly successful animated films of Pixar, a firm he founded while an outcast from Apple. This is a very engaging and fascinating book about a larger than life person, the like of which may not be seen again for years.

CHW

The Boneshaker

The Boneshaker

by Kate Milford

Clarion, 2010.  372 pgs. Young Adult

Kate Milford's very scary story of the devil loose in post World War I Missouri builds slowly, taking its time, scariness flickering around the edges of the story and then subsiding, only to flare up again. Natalie very much wants to learn to ride her boneshaker bicycle, but it is hinged and jointed so strangely that she falls off relentlessly. She also like working in the shop with her father, a mechanic who can repair just about anything.  Together they are working on a small automaton.  But when a traveling medicine show comes to town, everything gets very strange: automata appear that have no need of keys, a devilish array of barkers and healers make there way through the town of Arcane, selling cures that work--for a time.  An interesting, American variation of a "devil at the crossroads" story, The Boneshaker honors courage and confidence in the face of seemingly irrepressible evil.  Best-suited for young people from sixth grade on up.

LW

How to Find Out Anything

How To Find Out Anything: From Extreme Google Searches to Scouring Government Documents, A Guide to Uncovering Anything About Everyone and Everything
by Don MacLeod
Prentice Hall Press, 243 pgs. Non-fiction

For many of us, the prospect of doing research is a daunting one. Where to begin? This book is a good resource for just about anyone, whether its a high school student starting his or her first real paper or the more seasoned information searcher looking to kick up his skills a notch. This book is concise, covering a number of different aspects of information searching. It covers aspects of information such as deep web resources, some more advanced Google searching techniques, the continuing importance of libraries (Hurrah!) and sources of information on associations, businesses and public records. While each subject is not reviewed exhaustively, this is a good resource to get some good tips and tools for begining serious research. I particularly liked the fact that online resources mentioned in each chapter are listed for quick reference. I would recommend this for everyone who wants or needs to seriously dig for information online.

CHW

My Beloved World

My Beloved World
by Sonia Sotomayor
Knopf, 2013.  315 pgs. Autobiography

Justice Sotomayor's impressive autobiography tells the story of a young girl who grew up in the South Bronx, daughter of a loving but alcoholic father (who died when she was nine) and a hardworking but often distant mother. Her paternal grandmother essentially raised her, nurturing and encouraging her, as did her neighborhood friends and family from near and far. Diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age eight, she took responsibility for her own health when her parents fought over who had to give her shots. This kind of mental toughness would stand her in good stead as she chose her life's goals--discovering that, at that time, diabetics could not become police officers, and figuring that diabetes would also disqualify her for work as a detective like Nancy Drew, she decided she wanted to become a lawyer, like Perry Mason, or better yet, one of the judges who handed down the verdicts for Perry's clients. Hard work in school and encouragement from her high school sweetheart led her to apply to Princeton, even though she had no idea at the time what was meant by an Ivy League school.  Not only was she accepted, but she graduated summa cum laude, another phrase with which she was unfamiliar. After graduating from Yale Law School she chose to work as a prosecutor, racking up valuable and immediate courtroom experience, then went on to a civil law firm where she wore a bulletproof vest and sped around on a motorcycle to catch producers of knock-off handbags when they moved their merchandise from one warehouse to another.  There is much to learn from this fine volume:  about the law, about Puerto Rico, about what is required to rise above poverty and a difficult childhood into a life of extraordinary accomplishment. "My Beloved World" is a fine memoir which disappointingly stops short of Ms. Sotomayor's time on the Bench, but which reveals a young girl and young woman who took on all obstacles with grit, determination, compassion, and a finely honed sense of justice and fair play.

LW

125 True Stories of Amazing Animals

125 True Stories of Amazing Animals
National Geographic, 2012. 112 pgs. Young Adult Nonfiction

This book is tons of fun, with stories about pig sporting events, a music band made up of cats, a dog that rescues cats, a disabled rabbit who rides with a skateboard-like brace and cheers up hospital patients, a penguin who was knighted, and a camel who was made a sheriff’s deputy, just for starters. They’re short little stories--just a couple paragraphs each--so you don’t get a ton of details, but they’re super fun and cute. This is a great book for reluctant readers and animal lovers.

AE

The Friday Society

The Friday Society
By Adrienne Kress
Dial Books, 2012. 440 pgs. Young Adult

Cora is the assistant to an inventor, Nellie is the assistant to a magician, and Michiko is the assistant to a combat instructor. The three girls are thrown together when dead bodies start crossing their paths and they must use their combined talents to figure who is behind the murders. Individually, each girl has numerous talents, but together, they just might be able to save London.

This steampunk mystery-adventure story is tons of fun. It's lighthearted and fluffy, and all three of the girls are strong, likable characters. The language doesn't always the time period and can occasionally be jarring and distracting, but readers should be able to overlook that and enjoy the book's many good points.

AE

Commander: The Life and Exploits of Britain's Greatest Frigate Captain

Commander: The Life and Exploits of Britain's Greatest Frigate Captain
by Stephen Taylor
W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. 307 pgs. Nonfiction

In a career spanning several decades, from the American Revolution to the fall of Napoleon in 1815, the life of Edward Pellew was the stuff of novels. Indeed, he is regarded by many as the basis for the main character in Patrick O'brian's Jack Aubrey series. Like that character, he proves himself to be a excellent sailor and ship commander, though saddled with a talent for making enemies among other fleet commanders and flag officers. In a service where patronage and promoting favorites is practically de regueur, he shamelessly promoted his sons to positions of command. However, his courage, fighting spirit and luck made him a national hero until Lord Nelson supplanted him. This is a very engaging and entertaining read. I highly recommend this for any fans of of history or naval adventure stories. It reads well as both.

CHW

One for the Books

One for the Books
by Joe Queenan
Viking, 2012.  244 pgs. Nonfiction

Joe Queenan, journalist, reviewer, lover of books, didn't care for David Benioff's City of Thieves because no one who had survived the siege of Leningrad could ever have become a Yankees' fan. And although he reads at least two  hours a day and sometimes longer, and reads a hundred books a year and "often twice that many," he never reads in the bathroom. One for the Books is irreverent, thoughtful, scathing, equal parts good sense and oddness, a book bibliophiles will love if for no other reason than that it is loaded with good book recommendations, many of them in French, alas.

LW