Brookfield Reads

2011-09-30T15:07:00.000-04:00

"Mitchard's latest ought to come with a warning: make no immediate plans, because this book will take over your life." Booklist

SECOND NATURE by Jacquelyn Mitchard

"Sicily Coyne was just thirteen when her father was killed in a school fire that left her face disfigured. Twelve years later, a young surgeon, Eliza Cappadora, offers hope in the form of a revolutionary new surgery that may give Sicily back the grace and function she lost. Raised by a dynamic, tenacious aunt who taught her to lead a normal life, and engaged to a wonderful man who knew her long before the accident, Sicily rejects the offer: She knows who she is, and so do the people who love her. But when a secret surfaces that shatters Sicily’s carefully constructed world, she calls off the wedding and agrees to the radical procedure in order to begin a new life.

Her beauty restored virtually overnight, Sicily rushes toward life with open arms, seeking new experiences, adventures, and, most of all, love. But she soon discovers that her new face carries with it risks that no one could have imagined. Confronting a moral and medical crisis that quickly becomes a matter of life and death, Sicily is surrounded by experts and loving family, but the choice that will transform her future, for better or worse, is one she must make alone."

~ Random House

2011-09-29T14:58:00.002-04:00

"The Leftovers is, simply put, the best Twilight Zone episode you never saw."--Stephen King, New York Times Book Review

THE LEFTOVERS by Tom Perrotta

"One hundred people have disappeared from tiny Mapleton, New Jersey, in a Rapture-like event that has left the community visibly shaken. Some people are miffed at being left behind, while others are inconsolable over the loss of their loved ones. Mayor Kevin Garvey struggles to give the town a sense of community by adhering to such traditional rites as parades, yet his own family seems irrevocably broken. His son has joined a cult led by the charlatan Happy Wayne; his 16-year-old, straight-A daughter has morphed into a depressed goth; and his wife has become a member of the Guilty Remnant, a group of separatist fanatics who chain smoke, refuse to speak, and stalk Mapleton's citizens to ensure that they will never forget what happened."

~ Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association.

2011-08-03T19:04:00.000-04:00

2030: The Real Story About What Happens to America by Albert Brooks

"Comedian and filmmaker Brooks welcomes the reader to the year 2030 in his smart and surprisingly serious debut. Cancer has been cured, global warming is an acknowledged reality, people have robot companions, and the president is a Jew-and oy vey does he have his hands full with an earthquake-leveled Los Angeles and a growing movement by the young to exterminate the elderly. And when the Chinese offer to rebuild L.A. in exchange for a half-ownership stake in Southern California, President Bernstein is faced with a decision that will alter the future of America.

Brooks's sweeping narrative encompasses a diverse cast of characters, including an 80-year-old Angelino left homeless by the earthquake, a trust fund brat with a grudge against the elderly, and a teenage girl saddled with debt after her father's death, all of whom get brought together just in time for a climactic hostage crisis. Brooks's mordant vision encompasses the future of politics, medicine, entertainment, and daily living, resulting in a novel as entertaining as it is thought provoking, like something from the imagination of a borscht belt H.G. Wells."

~ Publishers Weekly, LLC

2011-08-02T18:12:00.002-04:00

The Swimming Pool by Holly LeCraw

LeCraw's thoughtful debut novel tells of two families whose lives are entwined by tragedy, secrecy, and scandal. Marcella Atkinson's heart was broken the night her affair with Cecil McClatchey ended and his wife was murdered. Never entirely cleared as a suspect in her killing, Cecil himself died soon after. Years later, her own marriage destroyed by the affair, Marcella is again thrown into contact with the McClatchey family when her daughter Toni (ignorant of her mother's adultery) is employed by Cecil's daughter, Callie, who for her own reasons must seek solace with her brother Jed in their family's summer home on Cape Cod. Jed's discovery of Marcella's old swimsuit in a closet leads him to her and to an entirely new relationship. VERDICT This exceptionally complex and accomplished novel does not read like the work of a beginning writer. With a strong underlying theme of longing woven throughout, LeCraw's work skillfully takes these characters through varying emotional journeys. An insightful piece, not just for beach or airplane reading. An author to watch.

-Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC

2011-07-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

In the not-too-distant future, the first true artificial intelligence, Archos. awaken. in a computer research center in northwest Washington State and decides that humanity's dominion over the planet has ended and the time of the machine has begun. Archos, unlike SkyNet in the Terminator movies, prefers more mundane but creepier methods: instead of using cyborg Arnold Schwarzeneggers as instruments of destruction, Archos relies on children's toys, battlefield pacification units, domestic service robots, and pleasure dolls to do its dirty work. In one unsettling scene, a little girls Baby-Comes-Alive doll tries to get out of the toy box so it can massacre the entire family.

But even in the face of almost certain defeat against the growing hordes of electronic killers in the New War, humanity unites to kick some serious robot butt. The author, who holds a doctorate in robotics, shows great promise as a worthy successor to Michael Crichton as Wilson, like the late Crichton, is skilled in combining cutting-edge technology with gripping action scenes.

--Gannon, Michae. Copyright 2010 Booklist

2011-07-22T12:41:00.000-04:00

Then Came You: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner

A modern day fairy tale.....

"Weiner's latest outing chronicles the plight of four women who are brought together when one of them decides to have a baby. At 43, India knows her hopes of having a child naturally are slim, and the in vitro fertilization she and her older, wealthy husband, Marcus, have been trying isn't working. So India and Marcus decide to go another route: they select an egg from a donor and choose a surrogate to carry the baby. Weiner introduces us to both: Jules is a stunning college student who decides to donate her eggs so she can pay for her father to go to rehab, and Annie, a young mother of two, chooses to become a surrogate to help support her family. The only one not happy with India's plan is Bettina, Marcus' adult daughter, who is secretly hoping her parents will reunite. In this warm and winning yarn, Weiner draws readers into the lives of each woman, and brings them together in an unexpected and ultimately rewarding way."

~ -Huntley, Kristin. Copyright 2010 Booklist

2011-07-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel by S. J. Watson

"Forty-seven-year-old Christine Lucas awakens each morning believing she is still in her twenties and single. She suffered a terrible accident that has severely impaired her memory. She doesn't recognize Ben, the man who tells her he is her husband; she doesn't remember that she had a son; and, worst of all, she does not feel comfortable in her own skin, appalled by her wrinkled face and old-lady clothes.

But it turns out she has been getting some help with her memory problem. Dr. Nash calls her every day after Ben leaves for work to tell her where to retrieve her journal, which contains key details about her previous life and work. The most upsetting thing she learns from her journal, however, is that certain facts don't match the story Ben has been telling her. But how can she be sure he is deceiving her when she can barely hold on to the threads of her own life? This mesmerizing, skillfully written debut novel from a British author works on multiple levels. It is both an affecting portrait of the profound impact of a debilitating illness and a pulse-pounding thriller whose outcome no one could predict."

--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist

Note: Also available in large print.

2011-07-20T11:39:00.003-04:00

"Kirkus Reviews named Tolstoy and the Purple Chair an outstanding debut novel of 2011 and gave it a starred review: “This celebration of the richness of reading will reward anyone who loves to read…Intelligent, insightful and eloquent, Sankovitch takes the reader on the literary journey…even the well-read reader will be inspired to explore some of the books from this magical year.”

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch

"When Sankovitch lost her older sister to cancer, she was determined to "live her life double" in order to make up for her family's painful loss. But after three years spent at a frenetic pace, Sankovitch decided to slow down and rediscover the pleasure of books in order to reconnect with the memory of her sister. Despite the day-to-day responsibilities of raising four sons-and the holidays, vacations, and sudden illnesses that accompany a large family-Sankovitch vowed to read one book a day for an entire year and blog about it. In this entertaining bibliophile's dream, Sankovitch (who launched ReadAllDay.org and was profiled in the New York Times) found that her "year of magical reading" was "not a way to rid myself of sorrow but a way to absorb it." As well as being an homage to her sister and their family of readers, Sankovitch's memoir speaks to the power that books can have over our daily lives. Sankovitch champions the act of reading not as an indulgence but as a necessity, and will make the perfect gift from one bookworm to another."

~ Publishers Weekly, (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

2011-05-17T10:21:00.003-04:00

Caleb's Crossing: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

"Pulitzer Prize-winner Brooks (for March) delivers a splendid historical inspired by Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Brooks brings the 1660s to life with evocative period detail, intriguing characters, and a compelling story narrated by Bethia Mayfield, the outspoken daughter of a Calvinist preacher. While exploring the island now known as Martha's Vineyard, Bethia meets Caleb, a Wampanoag native to the island, and they become close, clandestine friends. After Caleb loses most of his family to smallpox, he begins to study under the tutelage of Bethia's father. Since Bethia isn't allowed to pursue education herself, she eavesdrops on Caleb's and her own brother's lessons.

Caleb is a gifted scholar who eventually travels, along with Bethia's brother, to Cambridge to continue his education. Bethia tags along and her descriptions of 17th-century Cambridge and Harvard are as entertaining as they are enlightening (Harvard was founded by Puritans to educate the "English and Indian youth of this country," for instance). With Harvard expected to graduate a second Martha's Vineyard Wampanoag Indian this year, almost three and a half centuries after Caleb, the novel's publication is particularly timely."

~ Publisher Weekly Review

This may be my new favorite of all of Geraldine Brook's books. She perfectly captures 17th century Martha's Vineyard and Cambridge. Her characters are memorable and the religious conflicts between the Puritans and Native Americans are thought-provoking. Looking forward to having a book discussion on this new release. ~kvl

2011-04-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

T HE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown

"You don't have to have a sister or be a fan of the Bard to love Brown's bright, literate debut, but it wouldn't hurt. Sisters Rose (Rosalind; As You Like It), Bean (Bianca; The Taming of the Shrew), and Cordy (Cordelia; King Lear)--the book-loving, Shakespeare-quoting, and wonderfully screwed-up spawn of Bard scholar Dr. James Andreas--end up under one roof again in Barnwell, Ohio, the college town where they were raised, to help their breast cancera stricken mom. The real reasons they've trudged home, however, are far less straightforward: vagabond and youngest sib Cordy is pregnant with nowhere to go; man-eater Bean ran into big trouble in New York for embezzlement, and eldest sister Rose can't venture beyond the "mental circle with Barnwell at the center of it."

For these pains-in-the-soul, the sisters have to learn to trust love--of themselves, of each other--to find their way home again. The supporting cast--removed, erudite dad; ailing mom; a crew of locals; Rose's long-suffering fiancAc--is a punchy delight, but the stage clearly belongs to the sisters; Macbeth's witches would be proud of the toil and trouble they stir up."

~Copyright Publishers Weekly Review

2011-03-29T13:48:00.000-04:00

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

"Diana Bishop is the last of the Bishops, a powerful family of witches, but she has refused her magic ever since her parents died and, instead, has turned to academia. When a new project takes her to Oxford, she is looking forward to several months in the Bodleian, investigating alchemical manuscripts. Her peace is soon interrupted when one of the books she finds in the library turns out to have been lost for 150 years and is wanted desperately by the witch, daemon, and vampire communities so desperately that many are willing to kill for it. But the very first creature to approach her after her discovery is Matthew, a very old vampire and fellow scholar, who seems only to want to protect her. Harkness creates a compelling and sweeping tale that moves from Oxford to Paris to upstate New York and into both Diana's and Matthews complex families and histories. All her characters are fully fleshed and unique, which, when combined with the complex and engaging plot, results in one of the better fantasy debuts in recent months."

~ Booklist (starred review)

Excellent read! Also available as Book on CD.

2011-01-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

"An intoxicating chillfest that's sharper than a vamp's incisors." ~Daily Record

The Radleys: A Novel by Matt Haig

"The Radleys Peter, Helen, and their two teenagers, Clara and Rowan live outwardly in domestic bliss, but it comes at a price: Peter and Helen are abstainers, vampires who view blood drinking as an addiction, and keeping up the facade has strained their marriage. They've kept the truth from their children, but this backfires when Clara's vegan diet (dangerous for abstainers, who need meat) causes uncontrollable blood lust, culminating in her ripping a boy to shreds. Enter Uncle Will, an unrepentant vampire, whose subtle and dangerous charm brings even more trouble. This is a dark domestic drama about a loving but dysfunctional family that just happens to be vampires, though delicious moments of gore maintain its horror connection. Excerpts from The Abstainer's Handbook, which the Radley's rigidly follow, cleverly mimic self-help manuals, and Haig's sly digs at suburbia's forced banality and conformity are on target. As Rowan says, Everyone represses everything. . . . We're middle-class and we're British. Repression is in our veins. A white-picket-fence-style happy ending caps off this unusual blended story."

--Hutley, Krista Copyright 2010 Booklist

2010-12-28T15:05:00.000-05:00

"Hellenga is fearlessly inventive. Could anybody else combine snake handling, the Ituri pygmies of the Congo, life in a women's prison, learning to play timpani, a murder trial and a poignant love affair in three hundred-odd fast-paced, highly readable pages?"
—Maxine Kumin

THE SNAKEWOMAN OF LITTLE EGYPT by Robert Hellenga

"The lovers in Hellenga's moving, profound novels do not live in a world of conventional happy endings. His romances often end in attenuated moments of both disappointment and tenderness, partings that have the feel not of failed relationships but of life moving on and working out as it must. There is melancholy in that but a kind of happiness, too.

So it was in his best-selling debut, The Sixteen Pleasures (1994), and so it is in his latest novel, about a young woman, Sunny, just released from prison after serving five years for shooting (but not killing) her husband, and Jackson, an anthropology professor torn between his desire to return to Africa and to settle into the comfortable university life he's found in southern Illinois. Everything changes when Jackson meets Sunny, who grew up in a snake-handling church in Illinois' Little Egypt area (she shot her husband after he forced her to put her hand in a box of rattlesnakes). Sunny rents Jackson's garage apartment and quickly becomes his lover, but she is trying to escape her childhood and her husband, and Jackson is entranced by her stories of the Church of the Burning Bush with Signs Following, eventually going there to do fieldwork.

Hellenga fills the novel not only with fascinating details of snake handling and the religious ecstasy it inspires but also with a beguiling portrait of the comfort and shared intimacy of domestic life. Jackson and Sunny dance between the safe harbor of their life together and the wider sea of courage, risk, and adventure, each teaching the other about the many forms of joie de vivre.Yes, it is a melancholy story, but it is also immensely satisfying and even uplifting in that unique way that only deeply felt life can provide"

.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist

2010-11-29T19:31:00.000-05:00

THE OUTSIDE BOY by Jeanine Cummins

"Christy, nearly 12, is an Irish Traveller, a Pavee, a child of motion who, with his family, journeys restlessly from town to town, never staying in any place long enough to call it home. But when his beloved Grandda dies, family secrets begin to spill out, and things begin to change, perhaps irrevocably. Set in Ireland in 1959, Cummin's first novel (shes also the author of the memoir A Rip in Heaven, 2004) is a deeply moving and elegiac look at a vanishing culture. Told in Christy's vernacular but often poetic first-person voice, The Outside Boy is gorgeously written and an implicit celebration of Irish storytelling. And it offers a convincing and evocative look at a way of life little known or understood by the many foreign to it. Though Cummin's treatment of the Pavee may sometimes seem idealized, she is quick to acknowledge their occasional petty thefts and tradition of mooching. Her overriding, beautifully realized theme is larger than that, however: it is the universal desire to find a place where one belongs and people whether ones own family or as-yet-unknown others whose presence provides essential comfort, contentment, and completion.

~ Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association

2010-11-29T11:11:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year when we're out and about more, life gets a bit rushed and people can be thoughtless and sometimes, just downright rude. Whoopi's book may be just what you need to realize you're not the only one who thinks good manners are a thing of the past.

IS IT JUST ME? OR IS IT NUTS OUT THERE? By Whoopi Goldberg

"Have you noticed that things aren't as civil as they once were? Or that rudeness is no longer an exception but a lifestyle? Sure you have. All you need to do is set foot outside your door to see that bad manners are taking over everywhere. People are yakking on cell phones in restaurants, even at church. Folks in carpools wear enough cologne to make our eyes bleed. Complete strangers think it's OK to rub a pregnant lady's belly. Passengers abuse flight attendants, family outings to the ball park are ruined by rowdy drunks . . . a congressman heckled the President of the United States.

Well, Whoopi Goldberg has noticed all this and more and asked herself, "Is it just me?" Unleashing her trademark irreverence and humor, her new book of observations takes a funny and excruciatingly honest look at how a loss of civility is messing with the quality of life for all of us.

So if your pet peeve is folks who talk in movie theaters like it was their living room, or if you get bugged by people clipping their nails and performing other personal hygiene next to you on the bus, or if you cringe when "please" and "thank you" get replaced by "gimme" and "huh?" . . . you have found a kindred spirit. Because Whoopi has witnessed the growing disrespect and rudeness in our lives and realized she is not alone. And, as you'll discover in these pages, neither are you."

~ from the Publisher

2010-11-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

"Salvation City" is not only timely and thought-provoking but also generous in its understanding of human nature. When apocalypse comes, I want Nunez in my lifeboat." -"Vanity Fair"

SALVATION CITY by Sigrid Nunez

"Teenager Cole Vining had just moved with his parents from Chicago to a rural Indiana college town when a deadly flu epidemic leaves him orphaned and memory impaired. Shuffled from a Dickensian orphanage to a conservative Christian couple, Cole finds his muddled memories of his liberal parents clashing with the new reality of life in Salvation City with Pastor Wyatt, a charismatic preacher with a history of substance abuse, and his wife, Tracy. Cole now has a safe, close-knit community around him, but he feels its limitations as Tracy struggles to homeschool him. Then, an unexpected visitor presents Cole with new options and hope for a more balanced future...."

.-Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

2010-11-26T19:19:00.000-05:00

BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL by P. L. Gaus

"Amish bishop Eli Miller of Holmes County, OH, placed a ban on his own 18-year-old son Jonah when he refused to follow Amish precepts. Now, after ten years, Jonah returns to kidnap the son he fathered as a teenager, then disappears again. Not wanting to publicize private problems, Miller asks local professor Mike Branden for help in locating the pair. Branden, in turn, frets about not contacting police, especially after murder muddies the waters. Gaus obviously knows his subject well: a professor at the College of Wooster in the heart of Ohio's Amish region, he provides precise, detailed descriptions of Amish practices and full-bodied, unhurried, well-measured prose."

~ Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

2010-11-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

THE DINOSAUR HUNTER by Homer Hickam

"Former Los Angeles police detective-turned-Montana cowboy Mike Wire is enjoying the quiet life on the Square C ranch until the arrival of the titular paleontologist. The scientist's zeal impresses the ranch's owner, widow Jeanette Coulter, who allows him to hunt for T. rex bones, much to Mike's surprise. The mysteries begin with cattle killings and strange engine noises at night, and soon more newcomers appear, including a retired Hollywood producer and his heavily tattooed Russian friend. Environmental activists and government land agents add to the suspect pool, and when a murder occurs at the county Fourth of July party, Mike is forced to combine his skill sets to discover the truth and protect those he cares about."

-Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

2010-11-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

THE WOLVES OF ANDOVER by Kathleen Kent

"This prequel to Kent's The Heretic's Daughter (2008) focuses on the early life of outspoken, tart-tongued Martha Allen, from whom the author is descended. Set in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, the novel finds the still-unmarried 23-year-old Martha being sent to live with her cousins as a domestic. Once there, she finds herself intrigued by a hired man named Thomas Carrier. A Welshman, he is the tallest man she has ever seen and one of the most taciturn. But when he saves her from two marauding wolves, intrigue turns to attraction. But other wolves human ones this time may pose an even greater danger to the two. Who is Thomas, in fact? What part might he have played in the overthrow and beheading of England's Charles I? And why have a clutch of dangerous assassins come from England in search of him? An example of the currently popular genre-blender, the book is part historical fiction, part romance, and part suspense. Skillfully meshing these various elements, the author's latest effort is bound to please fans of each."

--Michael Cart, Copyright 2010 Booklist

2010-11-23T18:45:00.000-05:00

“Straight is both a novelist and a mother, and has to be numbered among the Mothers of Invention who count for so much in our literature, writers such as Louise Erdrich and Jane Smiley, Barbara Kingsolver and Dorothy Allison.”

—"The Boston Globe"

TAKE ONE CANDLE LIGHT A ROOM by Susan Straight

"Straight's (A Million Nightingales) newest heroine, FX Antoine, keeps a distance from her family, her past, and even her present. Her one tie to home is her godson Victor, the child of her murdered best friend, whose involvement in a shooting sends him careening off the college path and potentially straight into a life of crime. He flees to Louisiana, where FX grew up, and is followed by her and her father, who wrestles with family secrets of his own. Their pursuit of Victor is marred by complications, not the least of which is the looming Hurricane Katrina, putting them all at risk. Straight again places readers in a rich and alien culture, a melange of misfits and outlaws. FX is a detached protagonist, resisting her own family and culture, and readers will share her outsider's viewpoint. Straight's love of language is embedded in every page....."

~ Publisher Weekly Review, Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

2010-10-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

Cleo: The Cat Who Mended a Family
by Helen Brown

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for animal stories, especially ones about cats.

"Grace can come in deceptively small packages. For Brown, it arrived in the form of a runt-of-the-litter kitten whom her two young sons, Sam and Rob, adored on sight. Promised as an upcoming present for Sam's tenth birthday, it was a gift the boy never received. While the kitten was being weaned from its mother, Sam was taken from his. Just weeks after his birthday, Sam was killed in an auto accident, and Brown's world changed forever. Yet when the kitten was delivered to her new home right on schedule, Brown's heart first broke with the unfairness of it all, then gradually began to mend as little Cleo did what all kittens do: mounted a charm offensive like no other. Over the next 23 years, as Brown's marriage ended and career blossomed, the spunky Cleo remained her constant source of comfort and inspiration. Heartfelt and open, Brown's buoyant tale of loss and recovery celebrates the resilient patience and restorative powers of animal compassion."

~ Carol Haggas, Copyright 2010 Booklist

2010-10-06T15:10:00.000-04:00

The Lady Matador's Hotel by Cristina Garcia

"The Hotel Miraflor is the epicenter for explosive conflict in the capital of an unnamed Central American country ravaged by civil war and corruption. During the first week in November 2003, a presidential campaign reaches fever pitch, a military conference convenes at the hotel, and battles intimate and political, ritualized and spontaneous, erupt with seismic force. The hotels most prominent guest is a veritable goddess, Suki Palacios, a lithe and fearless matador from California of Mexican and Japanese descent, a woman who brandishes her beauty like a weapon. Another indomitable woman, attorney Gertrudis, uses the hotel as headquarters for her lucrative black-market adoption operation. Won Kim, a reluctant Korean factory owner, has sequestered his pregnant teenage mistress in the honeymoon suite. Aura, an ex-guerrilla working as a waitress at the hotel, plots revenge against a murderous, weight-lifting colonel. Garcia strides and twirls with a matadors daring, grace, and focus as she enters the psyches of diverse, intense, and unnerving characters; choreographs converging and dramatic story lines; and confronts the pervasiveness of the inexplicable. Streamlined, sexy, darkly witty, and succinctly tragic, Garcias fifth sharply imagined novel of caustic social critique concentrates the horrors of oppression and violence into a compulsively readable tale of coiled fury and penetrating insight.

~Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association

2010-09-28T19:35:00.000-04:00

Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women by Rebecca Traister

"Superb.... Big Girls Don't Cry is much more than an assemblage of these type of 'boys on the bus' campaign anecdotes. As anyone who's followed Traister's sharp and lively essays in Salon knows, her particular 'beat' is gender. What she does here is tease out the cultural narratives that came to wield so much power during the [2008 presidential] campaign and, finally, in the voting booth.... There's so much…to be learned and argued over in Big Girls Don't Cry…. Girls, these days, can not only run for president; they can also brilliantly analyze presidential campaigns, too."—Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

2010-09-21T16:11:00.000-04:00

THE EXILE: AN OUTLANDER GRAPHIC NOVEL by Diana Gabaldon (Illustrated by Hoang Nguyen)

"Diana Gabaldon’s brilliant storytelling has captivated millions of readers in her bestselling and award-winning Outlander saga. Now, in her first-ever graphic novel, Gabaldon gives readers a fresh look at the events of the original Outlander: Jamie Fraser’s side of the story, gorgeously rendered by artist Hoang Nguyen." ~ Book Jacket

2010-09-15T15:24:00.000-04:00

The Mullah's Storm by Thomas W. Young

"At the start of Young's well-crafted first novel, a transport plane carrying a high-value prisoner, a radical mullah, is forced down in the rugged Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. Maj. Michael Parson, the plane's co-pilot, and female Master Sergeant Gold, an interpreter who speaks Pashto, must brave a ferocious winter storm and reach a nearby Special Forces team with the mullah, but they wind up in the hands of Taliban insurgents. The SF team rescues Parson, but the Taliban escape, taking the mullah and the translator in opposite directions. The team must try to recapture the mullah, but Parson can't abandon Gold because "You love your comrades more than you hate your enemies." Young (The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan) draws on his own war experiences for verisimilitude, which, along with believable characters and an exciting plot, makes this one of the better thrillers to come out of the Afghan theater."

~ Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information

2010-09-14T14:32:00.000-04:00

Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen

"Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul, the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter (environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man) she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become a very different kind of neighbor an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time."

2010-09-13T14:25:00.000-04:00

Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

(*Note: This novel was already written by the time the Jaycee Dugard story broke).

"Five-year-old Jack and his Ma enjoy their long days together, playing games, watching TV, and reading favorite stories. Through Jack's narration, it slowly becomes apparent that their pleasant days are shrouded by a horrifying secret. Seven years ago, his 19-year-old Ma was abducted and has since been held captive-in one small room. To her abductor she is nothing more than a sex slave, with Jack as a result, yet she finds the courage to raise her child with constant love under these most abhorrent circumstances. He is a bright child-bright enough, in fact, to help his mother successfully carry out a plan of escape. Once they get to the outside world, the sense of relief is short lived, as Jack is suddenly faced with an entirely new worldview (with things he never imagined, like other people, buildings, and even family) while his mother attempts to deal with her own psychological trauma. Verdict Gripping, riveting, and close to the bone, this story grabs you and doesn't let go."

~ Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty. Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

2010-08-04T11:59:00.000-04:00

"A 'comic book' like I have never seen before. the illustrations are beautifully drawn. the amazing details in the panels are absolutely wonderful. check it out for yourself--you will not be disappointed."

~ Jaclyn

CHARLES DARWIN'S ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: A GRAPHIC ADAPTATION

"It is like confessing a murder," wrote Darwin, foreseeing that his complex work would upset millennia of theological tradition about the origins of life forms. Indeed, the creationism wars continue today. Now Rodale's lovely and multitextured version introduces a more accessible Darwin, no less complex-or fascinating. The graphic novel follows Origin's original chapters, combining snippets of Darwin's text with quotes from letters, illustrative examples from his time and from the present, and occasional invented dialog. Fuller's images of people seem clumsy, but her full-color plants, animals, charts, maps, and scientific accoutrements are attractive and effective. In drawings of three saber-toothed cats, for example, we can observe the "imperfection of the geological record" when only one animal perishes in a bog preserving the full skeleton. An afterword from Keller brings the scholarship up-to-date, from Mendel's pea plants to Wilson's sociobiology."

~ Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

2010-07-29T13:38:00.001-04:00

THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin

A human-created virus has infected humankind, mutating most into superstrong, near-immortal vampiric creatures. The "virals"-also called "jumpers" and "dracs" (after Dracula, of course)-can leap 20 feet through the air at a bound and split a human (or a horse, or a cow) in half with their bare hands. A small band of men and women embark on a cross-country trek, looking for a way to protect the few remaining uninfected humans from extinction. With them travels an enigmatic prepubescent girl who talks to the virals with her mind and seems to have been born 100 years before. VERDICT The monsters in this compulsive nail biter are the scariest in fiction since Stephen King's vampires in Salem's Lot. Although the novel runs 700 pages, Cronin is a master at building tension, and he never wastes words. Shout it from the hills! This exceptional thriller should be one of the most popular novels this year.

~ For Library Journal: David Keymer, Modesto, CA Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information

2010-07-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

One of the best books I have ever read. Loved the characters. Very interesting story about the help in the South. ~ Lisa

Note: The Brookfield Library will be hosting a book discussion on THE HELP on Thursday, September 2nd at 12:30 and 7:00 p.m. We have a limited number of copies available at the check out desk for any reader who registers and will attend one of the discussions.

THE HELP: A NOVEL by Kathryn Stockett

"......Optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing "about what disturbs you." The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies--and mistrusts--enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history...."

2008 Reed Business Information.

2010-07-21T12:57:00.000-04:00

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK: MY YEAR IN A WOMEN'S PRISON by Piper Kerman

A compelling, often hilarious, and unfailingly compassionate portrait of life inside a women's prison - When Piper Kerman was sent to prison for a ten-year-old crime, she barely resembled the reckless young woman she'd been when, shortly after graduating Smith College, she'd committed the misdeeds that would eventually catch up with her. Happily ensconced in a New York City apartment, with a promising career and an attentive boyfriend, she was suddenly forced to reckon with the consequences of her very brief, very careless dalliance in the world of drug trafficking.

Kerman spent thirteen months in prison, eleven of them at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, where she met a surprising and varied community of women living under exceptional circumstances. In Orange Is the New Black, Kerman tells the story of those long months locked up in a place with its own codes of behavior and arbitrary hierarchies, where a practical joke is as common as an unprovoked fight, and where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated. Revealing, moving, and enraging, Orange Is the New Black offers a unique perspective on the criminal justice system, the reasons we send so many people to prison, and what happens to them when they're there. ~ Book Jacket

2010-07-20T13:31:00.000-04:00

"Whether or not you are a dog lover, you will love this book! The characters and story are unforgettable, and I have a new appreciation for car racing. Enzo lives on!

~ Patti

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein

"Enzo narrates his life story, beginning with his impending death. Enzo's not afraid of dying, as he's seen a television documentary on the Mongolian belief that a good dog will reincarnate as a man. Yes, Enzo is a dog. And he belongs to Denny: husband, father, customer service technician. Denny's dream is to be a professional race-car driver, and Enzo recounts the triumphs and tragedies--medical, financial, and legal--they share in this quest, the dangers of the racetrack being the least of their obstacles. Enzo ultimately teaches Denny and the reader that persistence and joie de vivre will see them through to the checkered flag."

~Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

2010-07-19T13:24:00.000-04:00

Insignificant Other s by Stephen McCauley

"...Richard Rossi, a middle-aged human resources manager, confronts several delusions about his life: that his relationship with his partner, Conrad, is strong, despite infidelity on both sides; that he isn't really in love with Benjamin, a married father of two; and that his career is going well and he likes his job. As Conrad drifts away on frequent business trips, Richard is forced to think about what might have been. Set in Boston during the last years of the Bush administration, as the economy is starting to teeter, the novel has an end-of-an-era feel that fits Richard's contemplations about love, the generation gap, compulsive fitness, and the worship of material goods...."

~ Devon Thomas, DevIndexing, Chelsea, MI for Library Journal

2010-07-17T12:17:00.000-04:00

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano

"It's love, or something like it, for 15-year-old Alice Della Rocca when she first lays eyes on Mattia Balossino in the halls of her school. She recognizes a kindred spirit in the awkward, intelligent boy, who sports a bandage on his hand, the result of a shocking self-harming episode. Anorexic, with a bad leg from a childhood ski accident, Alice insinuates herself into Mattia's life in spite of the wall he has put up around himself, and the two settle into an odd but lasting friendship. Preferring not to be touched and feeling most at home in his math studies, Mattia comes to see both himself and Alice as"twin prime" numbers—similar, but always separated.

Eventually, after graduating from college, he reveals to Alice the awful secret behind his cutting habit. At the age of seven he left his retarded twin sister Michela in a local park to attend a birthday party, and she was never seen again. His confession brings the two closer, but soon after Mattia takes a job at a university overseas, in part to escape his feelings for Alice. Once there he flourishes in his career while carefully avoiding personal entanglements. Alice in turn settles down with an outgoing doctor she believes can give her a normal life. But the two never forget each other, and when Alice's life takes a difficult turn she summons Mattia back to Italy. He comes, knowing full well that surrendering to his attraction to her holds equal parts pain and pleasure. A bestseller in Europe, winner of the Premio Strega in the author's native Italy, this compelling debut shows a remarkable sensitivity and maturity in the depiction of its damaged soul mates." ~Kirkus Reviews

2010-07-15T23:55:00.000-04:00

"This book is an easy summer read. Bella is a lipstick-addicted makeup artist and stylist who is divorced and has sworn away men. Then she meets Sean Ryan and things turn out a little differently. Along the way, she has many entanglements with a large, loving family. The escapades of Bella and her family, set in small town Massachusetts, make for an enjoyable story. I recommend this book for anyone looking for a fun, happy, easy read. ~Megan

Summer Blowout by Claire Cook "Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove "Lifes a Beach" and "Must Love Dogs" in her latest beacher. Bella Shaughnessy, a makeup artist whose solace in times of hardship is finding just the right lipstick to match her mood, gets a divorce and quits men after discovering that her husband of 10 years has been seeing her younger half-sister, Sophia. During a wedding job, she gets stuck with dog-sitting Precious (who looked kind of like a flying squirrel) and quickly gets so attached that she takes drastic measures to keep the dog. Can other kinds of attachment be far behind, as cute and easygoing Sean Ryan enters the picture? Sufficient comedy and romance keep readers entertained until the last page." ~Publisher Weekly

2010-07-10T12:16:00.000-04:00

"In a day-by-day diary format, Libby Riddles tells her own story of winning the 1985 Alaskan Iditarod dog sled race. Without preamble or historical "filler," the first page jumps right into the Anchorage start of the race and takes the reader along every step of the next grueling, exhausting 18 days and 1200 miles to the finish line in Nome. Riddles shares with her readers the roller coaster of emotions that define her quest: the pain and exhaustion, the joy and hope, the fear, the incredible beauty of Alaskan wilderness, the hunger and thirst, the friendships and camaradarie, and above all, her love for her dogs."
~ Margaret

RACE ACROSS ALASKA: THE FIRST WOMAN TO WIN THE IDITAROD TELLS HER STORY by Libby Riddles and Tim Jones

2010-07-10T11:21:00.000-04:00

Patrick Davis has it all until he's kicked off the set of the movie production of his screenplay, he's being sued by the actor for assault and he's dealing with his wife's infidelity. But as bad as things are, his real troubles start after he receives a dvd and learns that he and his wife are the victims of identity theft and some serious and deadly stalking. Watch for this on the big screen! ~ Katherine

THEY'RE WATCHING by Gregg Hurwitz

Always a master of the gripping setup, Hurwitz (Trust No One) outdoes himself in this ultra-suspenseful thriller. One gray L.A. winter morning, disgraced screenwriter Patrick Davis steps out onto his porch in Bel Air, retrieves his newspaper, and finds a DVD tucked inside. The DVD opens with a static image of Patrick's downstairs bathroom, shot from outside the house, then shows him entering, using the toilet, and leaving. Other DVDs follow, each more disturbing than the last, until Patrick receives a phone call: "So. are you ready to get started?" Readers will be more than ready, as Hurwitz sure-handedly leads everyone, Patrick included, through this tale of mystery and murder, serving up one shocking surprise after another. Patrick eventually proves that, even though he's been outmaneuvered time after time, he's not entirely the pawn those manipulating him take him for. " ~ Publisher Weekly

2010-07-08T14:20:00.000-04:00

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot

"Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about "faith, science, journalism, and grace." It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women-Skloot and Deborah Lacks-sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah's mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line-known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta's death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children."

~ Publisher Weekly Review

2010-07-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

David Mazzucchelli's boldly ambitious, boundary-pushing graphic novel is remarkable for the way it synthesizes word and image to craft a new kind of storytelling, and for how it makes that synthesis seem so intuitive as to render it invisible…Asterios Polyp is a fast, fun read, but it's also a work that has been carefully wrought to take optimum advantage of comics' hybrid nature — it's a tale that could only be told on the knife-edge where text and art come seamlessly together.

–NPR’s The Five Best Books to Share with Your Friends.

Check this out for our summer reading program!

2010-07-06T16:40:00.000-04:00

Charley's Web by Joy Fielding

"A newspaper columnist who pushes the limits is contacted by a young girl who was a nanny and killed the children she cared for. She is now on death row and she wants Charlotte to make her story into a book. Surprise ending!" ~ Nancy

2010-07-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

"New author for me. Enjoyable, fast-paced political thriller. I enjoyed the characters and will definitely read more of Flynn's work. If you like Ludlum or Clancy, you'll enjoy this book." ~ Patrick

EXTREME MEASURES by Vince Flynn

"In the newest devastatingly intense thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling phenomenon Vince Flynn, his deadly and charismatic hero Mitch Rapp wages a war against a new enemy with the help of a fellow soldier as dedicated -- and as lethal -- as they come.Vince Flynn's thrillers, featuring counter terrorism operative Mitch Rapp, dominate the imagination of readers everywhere. In them, Flynn captures the secretive world of the fearless men and women, who, bound by duty, risk their lives in a covert war they must hide from even their own political leaders."

2010-06-30T14:23:00.000-04:00

"Latest in the Lincoln Rhyme series and it didn't disappoint. Raised some interesting questions about being disabled along with the mystery/suspense story." - Marie

THE BURNING WIRE by Jeffery Deaver

"An explosion at a Manhattan electrical power substation that destroys a bus--followed by threats of much worse violence unless Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light meets virtually impossible demands-sparks Deaver's sterling ninth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Broken Window). Forensic expert Rhyme takes charge of looking into the fatal blast, aided by his partner and sometime lover, field agent Amelia Sachs, among others.....The twin investigations take an increasingly dangerous toll on quadriplegic Rhyme's precarious physical health. Not even the brilliant Rhyme can foresee the shocking twists the case will take in this electrically charged thriller."
~ Publisher's Weekly

2010-06-25T16:46:00.000-04:00

THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US by Charles Martin

From the author of Where the River Ends, comes this page-turning story of love and survival. On a stormy winter night, two strangers wait for a flight at the Salt Lake City airport. Ashley Knox is an attractive, successful writer, who is flying East for her much anticipated wedding. Dr. Ben Payne has just wrapped up a medical conference and is also eager to get back East for a slate of surgeries he has scheduled for the following day. When the last outgoing flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer and a forthcoming storm, Ben finds a charter plane that can take him around the storm and drop him in Denver to catch a connection. And when the pilot says the single engine prop plane can fit one more, if barely, Ben offers the seat to Ashley knowing that she needs to get back just as urgently. And then the unthinkable happens. The pilot has a heart attack mid-flight and the plane crashes into the High Uintas Wilderness-- one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States.

Check this out for summer reading!

2010-06-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: A Novel by Stieg Larsson

Have you been caught up in the trilogy by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson? The final book has just been released (unless there's more lurking on his laptop) and it's not to be missed. But these books must be read in order, so if you want to get immersed in some of the best storytelling around, reserve a copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and lose yourself in this series that NY Times Book reviewer David Kamp calls utterly addicting and meet two of the most interesting characters on fiction pages today: "a fearless middle-aged journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, who publishes an Expo-like magazine called Millennium, and a slight, sullen, socially maladjusted, tech-savvy young goth named Lisbeth Salander, the “girl” of the books’ titles, who, in addition to her dragon tattoo, possesses extraordinary hacking abilities and a twisted, complicated past. "

Book 'Em! Our mystery discussion group at The Brookfield Library will discuss The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on August 30.

2010-06-21T10:41:00.000-04:00

'Water Your Mind: Read' is The Brookfield Library's Adult Summer Reading Program for 2010 for ages 17 and older.

Come join the fun this summer as The Brookfield Library helps you "Water Your Mind." Read some of your favorite books, find a new author, or read books you wouldn't normally choose. Just for signing up for adult summer reading, you'll receive a book mark and seed packet for summer growing (while supplies last).

There will be prize drawings for various activities that include:

- Reading three adult books

- Reading one book and writing a review for our blog

- Completing a library bingo game

- Submitting a photograph of you reading a book while on vacation or on a staycation

There will be a grand prize drawing for all adult (17+) participants. Water Your Mind will be held from June 15 - August 6. Registration packets will be available on Tuesday, June 21st. Prizes have been generously provided by The Friends of The Brookfield Library.

2009-04-02T15:24:00.000-04:00

The Act of Love by Howard Jacobson

"British novelist Jacobson is carving out a niche as the chronicler par excellence of warped, obsessive behavior. In Kalooki Nights, obsession with the Holocaust led his characters to unspeakable acts. Now Jacobson writes about obsessive sexual love that translates jealousy into joy. Felix Quinn is so in love with his wife, Marisa, that her affairs with other men become his highest form of fulfillment. He therefore arranges for her to meet the perfect lover. That his plan works, and at the same time causes misery to everyone, is inevitable. Felix's narrative of love and loss is not only twisted but also witty, and the novel is not only literary but also literate-it's peppered with writerly allusions from Herodotus to James Joyce, artistic allusions from Fragonard to Lawrence, and musical allusions from Schubert to the tango."

~ Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

2009-03-31T18:43:00.000-04:00

Did you know reading is a great stress reliever?

A recent study showed that just six minutes of reading can relieve stress by two thirds. Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.

Come in and see what new releases are on our shelves, as well as old favorites. All of us can use a little stress relief!

2009-03-31T18:38:00.000-04:00

Honolulu by Alan Brennert

"This sweeping, epic novel follows Jin from her homeland of Korea to a new life on the blossoming Hawaiian Islands. The year is 1914, and Jin is a "picture bride," a sort of mail-order bride to a Korean man living in Hawaii whom she has never met. Not the wealthy husband she was promised, he is a poor laborer who treats her cruelly. Escaping her abusive husband, Jin must make her way in Honolulu, eventually finding love and stability. But as the growth of Hawaii results in racial tension and violence, Jin and her family struggle to adjust. Seeing life through Jin's eyes is a pleasure as she changes from a farm-bound, repressed immigrant girl to an outgoing, educated member of Hawaiian society. Brennert (Moloka'i) weaves the true stories of early Hawaii into his fictional tale, and many of the captivating people Jin encounters are real. His depiction of the effects of the Depression is startling. Let's hope Brennert follows up this second novel with a third and continues to capture this intriguing and little-explored segment of American history in beautifully told stories."

~Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

2009-03-27T17:01:00.001-04:00

The Believers by Zoe Heller

"Heller (What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal) returns with an engrossing story of a severely dysfunctional New York family struggling to find its place in a quickly changing world. Joel Litvinoff, a famous civil rights lawyer, and his acerbic wife, Audrey, have spent their many years together as political protesters, raising their children with the same radical social consciousness. But when Joel suffers a stroke, the family, never a peaceful unit to begin with, loses what little cohesion it had. Eldest daughter Rosa, who had always mirrored her parents' views, decides to embrace Orthodox Judaism. Her meek and unattractive sister, Karla, a social worker married to a critical, arrogant union man, has an affair. Adopted son Lenny, an addict and ne'er-do-well, decides to sober up and get a job. Audrey remains in contention with all of them, angry that Rosa would stoop to religion, remorselessly picking on Karla's weight, and denigrating Lenny's efforts to remake his life apart from her. Heller writes with insight and honesty about the pain involved in testing one's beliefs and the possibility of growth in the process."

~ Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information

2009-03-21T12:19:00.000-04:00

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

"Both beautifully written and devastating."

Significant parts of The Book of Night Women are, understandably, very difficult to read. Rape, torture, murder and other dehumanizing acts propel the narrative, never failing to shock in both their depravity and their humanness. It is this complex intertwining that makes James's book so disturbing and so eloquent. Writing in the spirit of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker but in a style all his own, James has conducted an experiment in how to write the unspeakable—even the unthinkable. And the results of that experiment are an undeniable success.

~The New York Times - Kaiama L. Glover

2009-03-20T19:50:00.000-04:00

Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn

"Like Dunn's heroine in her debut, The Big Love, Holly Frick is brokenhearted and looking for happiness against the backdrop of hectic New York City. Holly believes in doing the right thing. Whether it's a result of her evangelical Christian upbringing or just a generally overactive conscience, the "right thing" includes adopting a dog with a brain tumor and meeting her married friend's paramour because her friend thinks they'll like each other. The assorted cast of supporting characters includes a 22-year-old lover, a skinny girl who finally agrees to date the overweight guy from her gym, and a gay man who has an unhealthy relationship with his attention deficit disorder meds. These characters circle around Holly in an exploration of six degrees of separation as she touches each of them-and they her-in their quests for happiness."

~ Anika Fajardo, Coll. of St. Catherine Lib., St. Paul, Library Journal Review, Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information

2009-03-17T13:58:00.000-04:00

Devil's Gold by Julie Korzenko

"Korzenko's polished debut, a romantic ecothriller, introduces Dr. Cassidy Lowell, a zoologist working for ZEBRA (Zoological Ecological Biological Research Agency). When the president of New World Petroleum targets Cassidy for refusing to report to OPEC that his company's oil spills haven't devastated West Africa's Niger Delta, Jake Anderson, of ZEBRA's covert Black Stripe team, rescues her from her research camp in the Delta. Back in the U.S., Cassidy investigates the mysterious deaths of wolves in Yellowstone Park, while Jake, posing as a biologist, acts as her bodyguard. The stricken wolves turn out to be infected with a genetic mutation of a virus, CPV-19, created by scientist Edward Fiske, who's horrified to learn his sponsor wants to sell it without an antidote. As the deadly virus jumps from wolf to man, Cassidy and Jake find comfort in their growing mutual attraction."

~ Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information

2009-03-16T00:39:00.000-04:00

The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine

"Ivor Tesham, a dashing member of Parliament, decides to give his married mistress, Hebe, an unusual birthday gift. He hires two men to kidnap her and transport her, bound and gagged, to their weekend love nest. Everything has been carefully planned-when the kidnappers' car is hit by a truck shortly after the abduction; Hebe and one of the kidnappers are killed, the other one is seriously injured. Ivor fears obsessively that the man will recover and tell the media the truth about his involvement. Vine (The Minotaur) paints a disturbing picture of a man whose dark secret is driving him to the edge of sanity. The setup is a bit slow, but once everything is in place, the tension remains high."

2009-03-13T13:24:00.000-04:00

The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley

"Sunley's debut novel is an intricate family travelogue, based in the present of Icelandic-Canadian life and the half-mythical world of her grandparents' Iceland. Sunley gives narrative reins to the granddaughter of a famous Icelandic poet, young Freya, whose memoir begins with the summer she first meets her mom's family in the Icelandic-Canadian village of Gimli. The bitter tension Freya discovers between her sensible mother and her unpredictable aunt goes deeper than personality differences, apparently tied to Aunt Birdie's role as family history keeper, her insistence that the children learn their Icelandic heritage, Norse mythology and language: "Icelandic words are tricksters. Acrobats. Masters of disguise. Shape-shifters." Equally capricious are Sunley's characters who, over 20 years of family storms and mental illnesses, pull Freya across the globe, landing her more than once in beautiful, beguiling Iceland itself. This grand coming-of-age-novel boasts a dynamic set of characters and a rich bank of cultural and personal lore, making this dark, cold family tale a surprisingly lush experience."

2009-03-12T12:42:00.000-04:00

Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue

"After his best-selling debut, The Stolen Child, Donohue has written a second novel about an uncanny child. This time, a mysterious girl named Norah shows up at a doorstep of a lonely old woman in the middle of winter. She takes the girl in, telling the neighborhood that Norah is her granddaughter, the child of the daughter who went missing ten years before. Norah brings happiness to many of the people she meets but disturbs others with her assertion that she is an angel sent to bring a message of destruction. What happened to the missing daughter becomes clear eventually, but other mysteries remain unsolved in this strange and finely written novel. Donohue has a talent for using small details to draw his characters, and the result is a dark and unsettling story that takes hold of the reader."

~ Jenne Bergstrom, San Diego Cty. Lib. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

2009-02-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

"Ogawa (The Diving Pool) weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel. Narrated by the Housekeeper, the characters are known only as the Professor and Root, the Housekeeper's 10-year-old son, nicknamed by the Professor because the shape of his hair and head remind the Professor of the square root symbol. A brilliant mathematician, the Professor was seriously injured in a car accident and his short-term memory only lasts for 80 minutes. He can remember his theorems and favorite baseball players, but the Housekeeper must reintroduce herself every morning, sometimes several times a day. The Professor, who adores Root, is able to connect with the child through baseball, and the Housekeeper learns how to work with him through the memory lapses until they can come together on common ground, at least for 80 minutes. In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade. Snyder-who also translated Pool-brings a delicate and precise hand to the translation.

~ Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

2009-02-17T08:52:00.000-05:00

Fool by Christopher Moore

"Here's the Cliff Notes you wished you'd had for King Lear--the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue--in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and "all Fate's bastards." It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune--only to discover the truth about their own heritage. There's more murder, mayhem, mistaken identities and scene changes than you can remember, but bestselling Moore (You Suck) turns things on their head with an edgy 21st-century perspective that makes the story line as sharp, surly and slick as a game of Grand Theft Auto. Moore confesses he borrows from at least a dozen of the Bard's plays for this buffet of tragedy, comedy and medieval porn action. It's a manic, masterly mix--winning, wild and something today's groundlings will applaud."

~ Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

2009-02-17T08:47:00.000-05:00

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

"Fifth-grade scholarship students and best friends Henry and Keiko are the only Asians in their Seattle elementary school in 1942. Henry is Chinese, Keiko is Japanese, and Pearl Harbor has made all Asians--even those who are American born--targets for abuse. Because Henry's nationalistic father has a deep-seated hatred for Japan, Henry keeps his friendship with and eventual love for Keiko a secret. When Keiko's family is sent to an internment camp in Idaho, Henry vows to wait for her. Forty years later, Henry comes upon an old hotel where the belongings of dozens of displaced Japanese families have turned up in the basement, and his love for Keiko is reborn. In his first novel, award-winning short-story writer Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children, and the sadness and satisfaction at the end of a life well lived. The result is a vivid picture of a confusing and critical time in American history."

~ Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Providence Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

2009-01-26T16:19:00.000-05:00

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

"Baker's bangup debut mixes the exuberant eccentricities of John Irving's Garp, Anne Tyler's relationship savvy and the plangent voice of Margaret Atwood. In an upstate New York backwater, Truly, massive from birth, has a bleak existence with her depressed father and her china-doll–like sister, Serena Jane. Truly grows at an astonishing rate—her girth the result of a pituitary gland problem—and after her father dies when Truly is 12, Truly is sloughed off to the Dyersons, a hapless farming family. Her outsize kindness surfaces as she befriends the Dyersons' outcast daughter, Amelia, and later leaves her beloved Dyerson farm to take care of Serena Jane's husband and son after Serena Jane leaves them. Haunting the margins of Truly's story is that of Tabitha Dyerson, a rumored witch whose secrets afford a breathtaking role reversal for Truly. It's got all the earmarks of a hit—infectious and lovable narrator, a dash of magic, an impressive sweep and a heartrending but not treacly family drama."

~ Publishers Weekly Starred Review

2009-01-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

SHELTER ME by Juliette Fay

"After Janie LaMarche's husband, Robby, dies in a motorcycle accident, the 38-year-old Pelham, Mass., widow embarks on a year of transformations in Fay's wise and inspirational debut. Going through the bewildering and painful cycle of grief and anger while trying to hold it together for her children—preschooler Dylan and toddler Carly—is no walk in the park. Enter Tug Malinowski, an attractive contractor Robby had hired to build a screened-in porch to surprise Janie. Tug is divorced, childless and attracted to Janie while she's tempted by Fr. Jake Sweeney, who has a secret life of misery and fears casting aside his vow of celibacy. Fay's mingling of Janie's pithy journal excerpts with crisp traditional plotting adds a nice depth to Janie's journey to emotional healing. The concerns of single motherhood after sudden tragedy come vividly to life, and as Janie learns to appreciate everyday miracles, readers will be charmed."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

2009-01-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

LARK & TERMITE by Jayne Anne Phillips

"In her latest novel, Phillips (Machine Dreams; Motherkind) works with favorite themes in a tale of secrets, family bonds, and the power of love related through multiple perspectives and set during the 1950s. Central to the narrative are a remarkable pair of siblings orphaned by the Korean War. Born the day his soldier father perished in the notorious No Gun Ri massacre, the young boy called Termite possesses unusual perception unnoticed by most observers because of his severe disabilities. His prospects in tiny Winfield, WV, seem dismal, but teenage sister Lark, who adores her little brother, won't give up. She schemes to gain a happy mutual future even while she is pursued romantically by a much older man, threatened with Termite's removal by the state, and endangered by approaching floodwaters. These suspenseful plot elements (including more than a hint of the supernatural) are supported by sensitively rendered characters and finely drawn Appalachian and Asian locales that create a poignant story with broad reader appeal."

~ Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2009-01-11T09:24:00.000-05:00

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

“Lamb does an extraordinary job narrating some of the most terrifying tragedies of the past 10 years....an epic journey.
Grade: A.”--Rocky Mountain News

"When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost; she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues." "While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface." "As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary - and American."

--BOOK JACKET.

2009-01-10T15:24:00.000-05:00

Fidel's Last Days: A Novel by Roland Merullo

"After two light comedies with spiritual overtones, American Savior (2008) and Breakfast with Buddha (2007), Merullo mines far darker material to construct a powerful tale of modern-day, devastated Cuba and its all but indestructible dictator, Fidel Castro. Ex-CIA agent Carolina Anzar Perez, niece of Roberto Anzar, one of Miami's Cuban-born, anti-Castro expatriates, works for the White Orchid, a secret organization that has masterminded a complex assassination plot aimed at the ever-canny Fidel. In Cuba, Carlos Gutierrez, the minister of health, disaffected from his government, has become a major conspirator in the upcoming attempt. Guarding Fidel is the evil Col. Felix Olochon Marlos (aka the Dentist), head of the dreaded D-7 secret police. The suspense is as thick as an authentic café cubano, and the labyrinthine plot appears to point to a successful conclusion, until Merullo jams the knife in one last time and gives this timely thriller a final, chilling twist."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2009-01-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

Knit Two by Kate Jacobs

"Continuing the warm-and-fuzzy saga begun in her popular The Friday Night Knitting Club, Jacobs stitches together another winning tale of the New York City knitting circle, more a sisterhood than a hobby group (the irascible Darwin Chiu can't even really knit). In this installment-and it does feel like an installment-readers catch up five years after the unexpected, book-capping death of club leader (and knitting shop owner Georgia Walker. Georgia's 18-year-old Dakota is at NYU, discovering her first love, while her father James and Georgia's best friend Catherine are still coming to terms. The rest of the cast runs a wide gamut of ages and experience, but is easier to follow this time around, as Jacobs is more comfortable giving them more space and backstory. Pregnant, whip-smart professor Darwin and her husband, Dan, are welcoming twins; video director and single mom Lucie is coping with a hyperactive 5-year-old and a failing parent; Georgia's old mentor, the wise Anita, begins questioning her own motives; and everyone's stories cross paths in satisfying, organic ways. A trip to Italy provides some forward motion, and pays off in a charming denouementthat nevertheless pushes a familiar it's-the-journey-not-the-destination message; still, this sequel is as comforting, enveloping and warm as a well-crafted afghan."

~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-12-01T20:23:00.000-05:00

The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent

"A family's conflict becomes a battle for life and death in this gripping and original first novel based on family history from a descendant of a condemned Salem witch. After a bout of smallpox, 10-year-old Sarah Carrier resumes life with her mother on their family farm in Andover, Mass., dimly aware of a festering dispute between her mother, Martha, and her uncle about the plot of land where they live. The fight takes on a terrifying dimension when reports of supernatural activity in nearby Salem give way to mass hysteria, and Sarah's uncle is the first person to point the finger at Martha. Soon, neighbors struggling to eke out a living and a former indentured servant step forward to name Martha as the source of their woes. Sarah is forced to shoulder an even heavier burden as her mother and brothers are taken to prison to face a jury of young women who claim to have felt their bewitching presence. Sarah's front-row view of the trials and the mayhem that sweeps the close-knit community provides a fresh, bracing and unconventional take on a much-covered episode."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-10-22T20:58:00.000-04:00

November Book Discussions at The Brookfield Library

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. or 7:00 p.m.

Vanishing Point by Marcia Muller

Monday, November 24, 2007 at 12:30 p.m.

Copies of discussion books and registration forms are available at the checkout desk or register by phone 203-775-6241 or online. For more information contact Katherine Van Leeuwen.

2008-10-21T00:52:00.000-04:00

In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld

"In this provocative and page-turning debut novel, Hinnefeld (Tell Me Everything and Other Stories) recounts the life of bird-lover, environmental activist and artist Addie Sturmer Kavanagh. Opening with Addie's death from cancer, and her troublesome dying wish—clear orders for a brazenly illegal burial—Hinnefeld's narrative migrates to Addie's days as a college art student, when she fell in love with birds and with the professor teaching her their biology, Tom Kavanagh. The early years of Addie and Tom's romance follows their birding and collaboration on an environmental, antiwar birding book destined to become a classic. Soon enough, though, the birth of their daughter, Scarlet, along with Addie's growing political and environmental awareness, relegate romance to the back seat. As Addie's creative vision shifts from avian homage to political tirade, the effects of her outspoken eco-outrage on her daughter, husband and two closest girlfriends are predictable but authentic, and at times moving. Hinnefeld's drama soars, especially in its depiction of Addie's complicated relationship with Scarlet, who's also trying to find her wings."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-10-18T15:47:00.000-04:00

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

"Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Akpan transports the reader into gritty scenes of chaos and fear in his rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa. An Ex-mas Feast tells the heartbreaking story of eight-year-old Jigana, a Kenyan boy whose 12-year-old sister, Maisha, works as a prostitute to support her family. Jigana's mother quells the children's hunger by having them sniff glue while they wait for Maisha to earn enough to bring home a holiday meal. In Luxurious Hearses, Jubril, a teenage Muslim, flees the violence in northern Nigeria. Attacked by his own Muslim neighbors, his only way out is on a bus transporting Christians to the south. In Fattening for Gabon, 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his younger sister are sent by their sick parents to live with their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who in turn explains to the children that they are going to live with their prosperous godparents, who, as Kotchikpa pieces together, are actually human traffickers. Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror—and there is much—is seen through the eyes of children."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-10-17T15:06:00.000-04:00

Who By Fire: A Novel by Diana Spechler

"In her affecting debut, Spechler raises the question of whether, in rescuing others, we risk ruining ourselves. Thirteen years after the abduction of youngest child Alena at the age of six, the remaining members of the Kellerman family are still deeply damaged by their shared loss. The irresponsible oldest daughter, Bits, seeks out random sexual encounters with near strangers to fill the voids in her life. Son Ash, meanwhile, dabbles in a variety of compulsive behaviors before settling on Orthodox Judaism, cutting himself off from the rest of the family and moving to Jerusalem. The mother, Ellie, enlists the help of a charismatic stranger to help save Ash from what she views as a cult, and when Alena's remains are discovered, Bits determines to bring Ash home for their sister's long-overdue memorial service. Told in alternating chapters by Bits, Ellie and Ash, the narrative is notable in large part for how little these family members actually interact with one another despite the drama that confronts them all. Though the ending is overly tidy, Spechler's debut raises provocative questions about religion, violence and the resilience of families and individuals."

2008-10-05T23:04:00.000-04:00

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
by Vicki Myron, with Bret Witter

"One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story—despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this was a job I could love for the rest of my life. Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. The book is not only a tribute to a cat—anthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls)—it's a love letter to libraries."

2008-10-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy

"In screenwriter Murphy's breezy debut, Henry Sullivan, a single, in-demand L.A. contractor, can pick and choose his high-end home renovation jobs. Henry's self-imposed rules—don't sleep with clients and don't take on too many projects at once—go out a half-finished window when he falls for two clients at once: Sally Stein, a single and successful purse designer, and Rebecca Paulson, an unhappily married mother of twins who is Sally's former best friend. Why the two women he loves are no longer speaking becomes so intriguing to Henry that he begins to dig for answers while simultaneously finishing (or, rather, attempting to finish) both their houses. How Henry finally solves the mystery is neatly wrapped up at the end of this amusing tour through the perils of poking around in others' intimate spaces."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-09-16T18:03:00.000-04:00

A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander

"Set in late 19th-century England, Alexander's third historical (after And Only To Deceive and A Poisoned Season) to feature Lady Emily Ashton begins at a country-house party at which political powerhouse Lord Basil Fortescue is shot and Robert Brandon, his protégé, stands accused of the murder. Emily attends the party with her fiancé, agent of the Crown Colin Hargreaves. While Colin is engaged in uncovering a plot against England, Emily, a close friend of Robert's wife, doesn't hesitate to look for the real killer. When Emily and Colin both wind up in Vienna mingling with anarchists and artists alike, the two are surprised to find how well they work together. Alexander cleverly incorporates historical figures and events into a fictional story of European political intrigue, English society, Viennese culture, and plenty of genteel romantic chemistry."

~ Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-09-13T13:29:00.000-04:00

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

"As a portraitist in prose, Sittenfeld never deviates from sympathetic respect for her high-profile subject: she is not Francis Bacon but rather more Norman Rockwell....Curtis Sittenfeld surely did not intend to create, in this mostly amiable, entertaining novel, anything so ambitious — or so presumptuous -- as a political/cultural allegory in the 19th-century mode, yet American Wife might be deconstructed as a parable of America in the years of the second Bush presidency: the "American wife" is in fact the American people, or at least those millions of Americans who voted for a less-than-qualified president in two elections -- the all-forgiving enabler for whom the bromide "love" excuses all."

- Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

2008-09-12T15:03:00.000-04:00

White Mary by Kira Salak

"A young reporter embarks on a dangerous adventure in Salak's gripping debut novel, a blend of Heart of Darkness and Tomb Raider. Like her protagonist, Marika Vecera, award-winning journalist Salak has traveled solo—and narrowly escaped death—in the world's most remote and terrifying places, including war-torn Congo and the interior of Papua New Guinea. Marika, an ambitious journalist, travels to discover the truth about war correspondent Robert Lewis, who has observed some of the modern world's greatest atrocities. He is believed to have committed suicide, but a letter from a missionary leaves Marika thinking he may still be alive in the wilds of Papua New Guinea. She sets off on her quest, and eventually malaria, ritual murder and arduous trekking through the wilderness lead Marika to some startling discoveries and a pathway out of her own past trauma. While the book can be harrowing (the graphic descriptions of torture are sobering and hard to put out of mind), it offers Marika a redemptive optimism in the face of the worst humanity has to offer."

2008-08-31T17:17:00.000-04:00

Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan

"In this tense, well-paced novel about belief, Kiernan explores what happens when faith and love test the limits of family fealty. In southwest Florida, college student Marshall Tobias is in search of something to believe in. He thinks he's found God and the woman he's always dreamed of when he falls in love with fundamentalist believer Ada Sparks. But Ada's against medical intervention for illness, and tragedy results when she sets out to help Marshall's 12-year-old sister, Meghan, overcome her life-threatening allergies. Switching points-of-view between Marshall and his mother, Chloe, Kiernan (Catching Genius) movingly portrays a 20-year-old marriage gone flat and torn apart by crisis, a troubled son, a daughter hovering between life and death, and the hard-to-discern boundaries between true faith and unhealthy fanaticism. She handles her difficult material respectfully. Most interesting is her portrayal of the well-meaning traps parents fall into when encouraging open-ended exploration of faith without context, or choosing to remain silent. The thoughtful themes, interesting characters and page-turning drama of this novel will likely make it a book club favorite."

2008-08-27T10:22:00.000-04:00

Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery by Hakan Nesser

"World-weariness in a detective is well and good—but what if it ends up costing innocent victims their lives? That's the predicament in which Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren finds himself in this moodily affecting mystery, the first to appear in Nesser's native Sweden but the third to be published in the U.S. (after The Return and Borkmann's Point). Though the melancholy cop suspects accused killer Janek Mitter is innocent of drowning his new bride during an alcoholic blackout, Van Veeteren opts to focus on such more personally compelling matters as his own ruptured marriage and to let the judicial process run its course—until a second, truly shocking murder boots him and the book into high gear. The suspense intensifies as it becomes apparent that the initial killing was no garden-variety domestic drama but part of a bloody tapestry worthy of Greek tragedy. Even if you guess the book's final twist a bit early, this is a hauntingly powerful tale you won't soon forget."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-08-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

Thanks for Nothing, Nick Maxwell by Debbie Carbin

"Carbin's brisk, funny first novel records the changes in a shallow, self-centered beauty brought on by a bun in the oven and an unlikely connection with a stranger. After being callous with many hearts, Brit Rachel Covington gets her comeuppance when her interoffice romance with superfoxy Nick Maxwell comes to an abrupt end. While pining for him and experiencing bouts of nausea, moodiness and ravenous hunger, she spies her friend Sarah McCarthy's husband, Glenn, passionately kissing another woman. Rachel also happens upon a lost cellphone and develops a friendship with its owner, charismatic Hector, soon revealed to be Glenn's successful older brother. When Rachel confirms her pregnancy, her decision to only let Hector know strengthens their bond and puts them on the fast track to potential romance, but circumstances prevent the would-be lovebirds from getting together. These are contrived in a necessary chick lit way, but Carbin fashions a convincing transformation for her protagonist. Other genre tropes abound (including the charged climax and Hector's wealth), but Carbin's engaging main character and swaggering sense of humor save the day."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-08-20T16:47:00.000-04:00

The Gargoyle: A Novel by Andrew Davidson

"At the start of Davidson's powerful debut, the unnamed narrator, a coke-addled pornographer, drives his car off a mountain road in a part of the country that's never specified. During his painful recovery from horrific burns suffered in the crash, the narrator plots to end his life after his release from the hospital. When a schizophrenic fellow patient, Marianne Engel, begins to visit him and describe her memories of their love affair in medieval Germany, the narrator is at first skeptical, but grows less so. Eventually, he abandons his elaborate suicide plan and envisions a life with Engel, a sculptress specializing in gargoyles. Davidson, in addition to making his flawed protagonist fully sympathetic, blends convincing historical detail with deeply felt emotion in both Engel's recollections of her past life with the narrator and her moving accounts of tragic love. Once launched into this intense tale of unconventional romance, few readers will want to put it down."

~ Publisher's Weekly Review. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
~

2008-08-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

"The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers."

~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-08-04T09:19:00.000-04:00

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

Have you reserved your copy of the latest and last of this incredible series? Or like me, splurged and bought one? I know, this is a teen book, but if you haven't read Stephenie Meyer's romantic series find out why it's just as hot among adult readers. Reserve a copy of the first of the series, Twilight, and enjoy!

From Barnes and Noble:

"Twilight tempted the imagination. New Moon made readers thirsty for more. Eclipse turned the saga into a worldwide phenomenon. And now, the book that everyone has been waiting for... Breaking Dawn, the final book in the #1 bestselling Twilight Saga, will take your breath away.

According to Stephenie Meyer, the idea for her sensational debut novel, Twilight, came to her in a vividly detailed dream in 2003. Over the course of three months, writing at night when her children were in bed, the young Mormon mother of three developed that dream into the spellbinding story of 17-year-old Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to the tiny town of Forks, Washington, and falls in love with a beautiful, mysterious vampire named Edward Cullen. After feverish writing, painstaking editing, and a brief but frustrating round of queries, submissions, and rejections, Meyer finally connected with an editor at Little, Brown who fell in love with the manuscript and signed her to a three-book deal.

Twilight debuted in October, 2005. An immediate sensation, it appeared on several year-end best books lists and earned its author a rabid cult following among teenage girls. Since then, Meyer has continued Bella and Edward's story in bestselling sequels that have proved equally successful. Young readers cannot get enough of these riveting novels -- a captivating blend of vampires, romance, and suspense -- and parents rest easy knowing the books do not contain the graphic language and sexually provocative material that pervades some YA series.

Whether or not the Twilight Saga proves to have "Harry Potter legs" remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Meyer continues writing. She forayed into adult fiction with 2008's The Host, a chilling science fiction tale about the end of humanity, told from the perspective of an alien invader. And she makes it clear the door is open for further installments in her vampire romance. Clearly, this talented author has many more stories to tell. Good to Know"

2008-07-14T16:38:00.000-04:00

Going Gray by Anne Kreamer

"To read Anne Kreamer's "Going Gray" is to enjoy that comfortable illusion that you are chatting with a friend. A friend whose confidences are told in a way that's concise, entertaining and thoughtful.

"Going Gray" is Kreamer's first book. It developed from a feature she did for More magazine about the process, when she was 49, of letting her hair grow out to show her natural gray after diligently dyeing it from age 25. This visible graying may seem like small potatoes, and she has the grace to acknowledge there are larger issues in life. But Kreamer skillfully uses that experience and its anxieties to explore thoughts about aging and femininity, and these are, of course, the memoir's real hook.

Kreamer also takes an almost girlish, Nancy-Drew-detective approach to examining what other women -- and some men -- think about the cultural pressures and self-images that connect to dyeing hair, especially for midlifers. Although happily married, she wrote an Internet dating profile for herself pretending to be divorced and put it, along with a photograph of herself, on Match.com. At times she used one with dyed hair and at others one with gray locks, to compare how many responses she got. Those of you who, like me, already have a happy vanity about the lively gray streaks in your hair, will be pleased to know she got more approaches with her natural gray look. In addition, Kreamer hired a data-gathering business to conduct a national survey to learn more about attitudes toward graying....."

~ Maud Lavin of the Chicago Tribune

2008-07-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

Sweet Love by Sarah Strohmeyer

"Julie Mueller, an over-40 TV reporter, is finally up for a promotion to the national news, but because youth is favored in her profession over experience, the job might go to her younger coworker. Julie's personal life is as filled with drama as her professional life. Her elderly mother, Elizabeth, tries to undo a past mistake by reuniting Julie with Michael, the man from whom she steered her daughter away 20 years earlier. Elizabeth has arranged for Julie and Michael to attend a series of cooking classes together, and though the two have been feuding for years because of an exposé Julie did on Michael's former boss, when they meet in class, it's clear they still have feelings for each other. Not everything ends happily for Julie as she deals with her mother's failing health, the demands of her teenage daughter, and finding a lump in her breast, but the story ends well enough. This fast-paced novel, Strohmeyer's fourth outside of the Bubbles mystery series, features an accessible protagonist faced at turns with some of the saddest and most lighthearted situations life has to offer."

~ Karen Core, Detroit P.L. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Check out our cupcake program!

2008-07-07T10:35:00.000-04:00

The Condition by Jennifer Haigh (Author of Mrs. Kimble)

"Haigh's third novel (after Baker Towers) begins and ends with a McKotch family gathering on Cape Cod. When Gwen McKotch is diagnosed with Turner's syndrome, her parents use the diagnosis and the subsequent treatment of her condition as a battleground for their already faltering marriage. Their eventual divorce affects differently each of the three children, impacting their thinking and actions into adulthood. Family interactions are sketchy at best—until Gwen's finding love while on a Caribbean vacation gets everyone talking. The communication results in forgiveness, if not actual understanding, and a surprising reunion back on Cape Cod brings the story full circle. Haigh creates a realistic family dynamic from richly drawn characters, capturing the family members' various expectations of and assumptions about one another."

~Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Five Stars from Katherine

2008-07-02T14:47:00.000-04:00

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

Book to Movie: This is our July discussion--the book discussion will be on Thursday, July 24 at 12:30 or 7:00 p.m. and a movie screening of "About a Boy" will be on Friday, July 25 at 2:00 p.m.

We have copies of the book at the checkout desk, and if you register for one of the discussions, we'll be happy to hold a copy for you. We'll view the movie (rated "Two Thumbs Up" by Siskel and Ebert and "Comedy of the Year" by US Weekly and starring Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz and Toni Collette) down in the library community room. Come to one or, even better, come to both!

"Hornby's protaganist is Will Lightman, a perennial guest at life's eternal cocktail party. Due to a happy accident of birth, Will has never had to work; but, as his friends have drifted away into meaningful marriages and careers, he finds himself, at 36, mostly alone, desperately hip, and leading the quintessential unexamined life. Then, a chance affair opens his eyes to a unique opportunity for endless low-emotional-risk liaisons: lonely divorced mothers! Ever resourceful, Will passes himself off as a single father, signs up for the next meeting of Single Parents-Alone Together, then blithely sets out to hold auditions for his next conquest. But things don't turn out exactly as planned. Through a complicated chain of events, Will finds himself the de facto guardian of a peculiar 12-year-old trouble magnet named Marcus, who soon susses out the truth behind Will's rather dodgy secret but cultivates Will for reasons of his own.

How these two emotionally stunted misfits learn to build a meaningful relationship makes for an intensely affecting and genuinely comic story. Like its predecessor, this irrepressible joy of a novel synthesizes dead-on cultural references and keen observation of the human condition. Nick Hornby's prose may have an English accent, but his theme is universal."

~ Greg Marrs, Barnes and Noble review

2008-07-02T14:39:00.000-04:00

The Misremembered Man by Christina McKenna

"Memoirist McKenna's debut novel—a pastoral, feel-good yarn set in 1974 County Derry—concerns two Irish 40-somethings who meet through a newspaper Lonely Hearts column. Both farmer Jamie McCloone and schoolteacher Lydia Devine have suffered the recent death of a loved one. Jamie's traumatic childhood at a sweatshop run by the nuns from hell precipitates his dependence on Valium and whiskey. Lydia, meanwhile, grew up under the oppressive thumb of her now-dead rector father and—at age 40, still a virgin who has never tasted alcohol—decides it's time to live a little. The pair, of course, are grossly mismatched—she prim and buttoned-down, he a rough-edged rustic—which is underscored repeatedly during their lengthy postal courtship. Comic relief comes from Jamie's neighbors, the McFaddens, who do their best to aid Jamie and lift him from his saturnine moods. McKenna—who's written a memoir, My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress—places a few twists in the narrative, saving the most startling until the close."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-06-25T07:56:00.000-04:00

America America by Ethan Canin

"It's refreshing -- and almost quaint -- to see someone try to write a Great American Novel in the 21st century. These days, writers are more apt to pursue the Great American Screenplay or the Not-So-Great American Ironic, Postmodern Fiction. But Ethan Canin's sixth book, with its flag-waving title, "America America," is a big, ambitious, old-fashioned, quintessentially American novel about politics, power, ambition, class, ethics and loyalty........

The principal action of "America America" takes place in western New York in 1971-72, when the nation is mired in a losing war in Vietnam and President Nixon is determined to win a second term. It centers on a liberal U.S. senator's run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. Henry Bonwiller of New York is a champion of the workingman with a "deep-held sense of what it was like to be excluded from the bounty of this country." He campaigns on the promise of bringing U.S. troops home........

Among its pleasures, "America America" offers thought-provoking aperçus on journalism and politics, including Corey's debatable observation that "an undifferentiated silt-panning for truth serves the citizenry only slightly better than a crooked disregard for it." Also intriguing is his elegant summation of the making of a politician -- "how the ritual of deference precedes the auction of influence, and eventually the orgy of slaughter."

~ from The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Heller McAlpin reviews books for a variety of publications, including Newsday and the Boston Globe. Complete review.

2008-06-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

"Flirt with Romance at The Brookfield Library"

From Connecticut Romance Writers

An Author Panel Featuring:

Lori Avocato

Mary Beth Bass
Kristan Higgins

Sharon Schulze

Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. at

The Brookfield Library

What better way to kick off a hot summer of reading and our 2008 Adult Summer Reading Program?

Come and discover - or rediscover - why women (and men, too) enjoy reading this popular bestselling genre about smart, independent and strong women. Also, if you're an aspiring writer or thinking about writing the Great American Novel, get insider tips on the writing process and getting published. Plan to join us for lively conversation and dessert.

Call 203-775-6241 or stop in to sign up. You may also register online.

Sponsored by The Friends of The Brookfield Library and The Brookfield Library
182 Whisconier Road
Brookfield, CT

2008-06-05T17:25:00.000-04:00

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

"Escaped slaves, free blacks, slave-catchers and plantation owners weave a tangled web of intrigue and adventure in bestselling memoirist (The Color of Water) McBride's intricately constructed and impressive second novel, set in pre–Civil War Maryland. Liz Spocott, a beautiful young runaway slave, suffers a nasty head wound just before being nabbed by a posse of slave catchers. She falls into a coma, and, when she awakes, she can see the future—from the near-future to Martin Luther King to hip-hop—in her dreams. Liz's visions help her and her fellow slaves escape, but soon there are new dangers on her trail: Patty Cannon and her brutal gang of slave catchers, and a competing slave catcher, nicknamed The Gimp, who has a surprising streak of morality.Liz has some friends, including an older woman who teaches her The Code that guides runaways; a handsome young slave; and a wild inhabitant of the woods and swamps. Kidnappings, gunfights and chases ensue as Liz drifts in and out of her visions, which serve as a thoughtful meditation on the nature of freedom and offer sharp social commentary on contemporary America. McBride hasn't lost his touch: he nails the horrors of slavery as well as he does the power of hope and redemption."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-06-03T19:00:00.000-04:00

Breath by Tim Winton

"MaineThis slender book packs an emotional wallop. Two thrill-seeking boys, Bruce and Loonie, are young teenagers in smalltown Australia, circa the early 1970s. Their attraction is focused on the water—ponds, rivers, the sea—but they do little more than play around until they fall in with a mysterious, older man named Sando. He recognizes their daredevil wildness and takes it upon himself to teach them to surf. As the boys become more skilled, their exploits become more reckless; narrator Bruce (nicknamed Pikelet) has doubts about where all this is heading, while the aptly named Loonie wants only bigger and bolder thrills. This mix of doubt and desire intensifies when the boys make a discovery about their mentor's past.Surfing isn't the only dangerous game in town. As Sando's attentions and favor flip-flop from one boy to the other, the rivalry between the two, present from the beginning, grows stronger and more sinister. Sando's American wife, Eva, becomes more of a presence, too. She walks with a limp, has plenty of secrets of her own and becomes increasingly involved in Pikelet's life, in ways that even a 15-year-old might recognize as not entirely appropriate........The author of 13 previous books, Winton is well-known in Australia and should be here. He touches upon important themes, of death, life, breathing and its absence, while looking dispassionately upon the relentless pursuit of thrills, pleasure, sex, status: the mundane obsessions of the ordinary and extraordinary alike."

~David Maine, Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-06-02T20:55:00.000-04:00

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

"Based on a real-life World War II diary, Bohjalian's (The Double Bind) 12th novel chronicles the last days of the Nazi regime through the eyes of an unlikely threesome. Anna Emmerich, an 18-year-old Prussian aristocrat, along with her mother and younger brother, is making a desperate attempt to journey west across the Reich out of the path of the advancing Red Army. Callum Finnella, Anna's lover and a Scottish POW who worked on the Emmerich family estate, is also traveling with the family. Uri Singer, a German Jew who escaped from a train bound for Auschwitz, is ironically the group's guardian as they travel through Germany. The novel is immensely readable, but the characters—the Jewish escapee, the heroic Allied soldier, and the beautiful Prussian aristocrat—seem more like archetypes than individuals. However, Bohjalian takes a fresh perspective and details the brutal realities of World War II in a novel that for once does not focus entirely on the Allies."

~Andrea Y. Griffith, Loma Linda Univ. Libs., CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-28T17:16:00.000-04:00

Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA by Kris Radish

"Radish's latest warm-fuzzy (after The Sunday List of Dreams) tracks the troubled marriage of Lucky and Addy Lipton. Lucky's Kingdom of Krap—the garage littered with dismantled appliances, an old car and every other project Lucky never finished—has brought Addy nearly to the breaking point in her stale marriage, but it's the last straw when their planned trip to Costa Rica (with its possibilities for romantic rejuvenation) doesn't happen. What ensues is a summer of separation, discovering personal desires and strong female friendships (it is, after all, a Radish book). As the summer gives way to fall, Lucky tries to win his wife back, while Addy is torn between living alone or giving the marriage another go. Girl-power readers will get a kick out of the hokey girl get-togethers, and women will surely connect with Radish's empowered femmes."

~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

The Best Day of Someone Else's Life by Kerry Reichs

"Despite being cursed with a boy's name, Kevin "Vi" Connelly is seriously female and a committed romantic. The affliction hit at the tender age of six when she was handed a basket of flower petals and ensnared by the "marry-tale." The thrill, the attention, the big white dress—it's the Best Day of Your Life, and it's seriously addictive. But at twenty-seven, with a closetful of pricey bridesmaid dresses she'll never wear again, a trunkful of embarrassing memories, and an empty bank account from paying for it all, the illusion of matrimony as the Answer to Everything begins to fray. As her friends' choices don't provide answers, and her family confuses her more, Vi faces off against her eminently untrustworthy boyfriend and the veracity of the BDOYL.
Eleven weddings in eighteen months would send any sane woman either over the edge or scurrying for the altar. But as reality separates from illusion, Vi learns that letting go of someone else's story to write your own may be harder than buying the myth, but just might help her make the right choices for herself."

~ From Harper Collins

2008-05-23T11:18:00.000-04:00

White Rose Rebel by Janet Paisley

"This richly textured historical romance from Scottish poet and short story writer Paisley reimagines the story of Col. Anne Farquharson, a real-life leader in the Jacobite uprising of 1745. When Bonnie Prince Charlie returns to Scotland in an attempt to take the throne, the English naturally seek to suppress his supporters. Aeneas McIntosh, chief of Scots Clan Chatton, reluctantly takes a commission with the English army, believing it the best way to preserve his clan and their land. His younger and far more impetuous wife, Anne, responds by joining with a former lover, Alexander McGillivray, and raising an army in support of the prince's ultimately doomed claim. Aeneas and Anne continues to love and lust after one another, despite their political differences. A complex, passionate love triangle; a realistic look at the horrific consequences of war; and a balanced, satisfying resolution mark Paisley's notable first novel."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-21T17:15:00.000-04:00

Quiver: A Novel by Peter Leonard

"In his debut novel, Leonard (son of crime fiction master Elmore) shows more than a little promise. Katie McCall is a still-grieving widow whose past comes back to hurt her in a bizarre manner. Shortly after her husband is killed by their son in a bow-hunting accident, an ex-boyfriend and a group of thugs show up and set in motion events that will lead to a life-or-death climax. It's impossible not to compare Leonard with his famous father, and there are some similarities. The story is tight, and the descriptions of the Michigan setting ring true, whether it's the Detroit area or further upstate. The pacing is excellent, and the characters all have unique voices. What prevents the book from being outstanding is the stilted dialog, which too often sounds like a written report rather than a conversation you'd expect people to have. Still, this is an excellent debut, and one that many will likely finish in one sitting. Leonard is an author to watch...."

~ Craig Shufelt, Fort McMurray P.L., AL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

"Allen's second bewitching offering (after Garden Spells) is a candy jar of magical characters and mystical adventures set in an ordinary North Carolina town. At 27, Josey Cirrini is plain and just this side of plump and trying to make up for her legendary childhood temper tantrums by caring for her aging, widowed mother Margaret. Her closet features neatly stacked junk food packages and romance novels, and her life chugs along. But as the book opens, Della Lee Baker, waitress at the local greasy spoon, shows up in Josey's closet, having propped a ladder against the house and climbed silently in overnight. She's hiding from someone or something, and has no intention of leaving anytime soon. Instead, the very direct Della Lee sends Josey on a series and missions and misadventures that encourage our low self-esteem heroine to step outside her box and away from her snack-filled closet. As in Allen's previous work, there's an element of the supernatural (self-help books that literally follow one around; tears that sprout mysterious tropical flowers), and again it works. Words such as sweet, charming and delightful are weak accolades for such a pleasurable book."

~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

Scream for Me by Karen Rose

"Bestseller Rose makes her hardcover debut with this intricately plotted romantic thriller, a sequel to Die for Me (2007). Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Daniel Vartanian, having recently buried his parents, who were done in by his late serial-killer brother, Simon, looks into a series of killings that appear to copycat the brutal rape and murder of Alicia Tremaine 13 years earlier. In the course of his investigation, Daniel meets Alex Fallon, an attractive nurse who asks him to help locate her hairdresser stepsister, Bailey Crighton, who's mysteriously disappeared. In a twist, Alex turns out to be Alicia's twin sister. The romance between Daniel and Alex intensifies along with the suspense as the body count rises. This chilling novel will leave Rose's fans breathlessly anticipating her next release."

~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-05-02T08:59:00.000-04:00

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

"Set in 1903, Adamson's compelling debut tells the wintry tale of 19-year-old Mary Boulton ([w]idowed by her own hand) and her frantic odyssey across Idaho and Montana. The details of Boulton's sad past—an unhappy marriage, a dead child, crippling depression—slowly emerge as she reluctantly ventures into the mountains, struggling to put distance between herself and her two vicious brothers-in-law, who track her like prey in retaliation for her killing of their kin. Boulton's journey and ultimate liberation—made all the more captivating by the delirium that runs in the recesses of her mind—speaks to the resilience of the female spirit in the early part of the last century. Lean prose, full-bodied characterization, memorable settings and scenes of hardship all lift this book above the pack."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-04-17T12:26:00.000-04:00

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

"Having met Cornelia Brown in de los Santos's well-reviewed debut, Love Walked In, we now follow her and her oncologist husband, Teo Sandoval, to suburban Philadelphia. Piper Truitt lives across the street with her husband and two young children. She considers herself the arbiter of style and local propriety. Add to the mix waitress Lake and her son, Dev, who is enrolled in a private academy far superior to his previous California public school. From the outset, Cornelia and Piper are traveling down different paths, while Cornelia and Lake seem to hit it off. Go figure? But there is more beneath the surface of these women and their motivations than the lovely locale can mask. Dev thinks he and his mother moved to the area because his long-lost (and unknown to him) father is there. But how do you go about locating someone who's been gone for 13 years? Then Piper becomes caregiver to her longtime friend Elizabeth, diagnosed with cancer, a role that seems more appealing to Piper than wife to Kyle. These family dynamics collide and reconfigure in a variety of ways that readers will find fascinating. De los Santos keeps us totally engaged with these fragile creatures, who get under our skin and, ultimately, into our hearts."

~Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-04-16T22:29:00.000-04:00

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

"Four years after the release of her best-selling novel, The Namesake, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lahiri returns with her highly anticipated second collection of short stories exploring the inevitable tension brought on by family life. The title story, for example, takes on a young mother nervously hosting her widowed father, who is visiting between trips he takes with a lover he has kept secret from his family. What could have easily been a melodramatic soap opera is instead a meticulously crafted piece that accurately depicts the intricacies of the father-daughter relationship. In a departure from her first book of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri divides this book into two parts, devoting the second half of the book to "Hema and Kaushik," three stories that together tell the story of a young man and woman who meet as children and, by chance, reunite years later halfway around the world. The author's ability to flesh out completely even minor characters in every story, and especially in this trio of stories, is what will keep readers invested in the work until its heartbreaking conclusion."

~Sybil Kollappallil, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2008-04-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison

"Red-headed witch Rachel Morgan has a demon after her, but that's just one of her many troubles in this action-packed sixth installment of Harrison's Hollows series (after 2007's For a Few Demons More). A nice guy might be moving into Rachel's town and life, but she's still getting over her last boyfriend, whose murder she has yet to solve. Elf politician Trent Kalamack wants her to go to the ever-after on a dangerous mission. Rynn Cormel, Cincinnati's new master vampire and ex-leader of the free world, is interfering in her life. Her friend, former demon familiar Ceri, is unexpectedly pregnant, by an unexpected partner. On top of all this, Rachel worries she may have had a too close encounter with a vampire and soon becomes concerned about her own abilities with demon magic. With the help of her feisty mother, Alice, and her pixy partner, Jenks, Rachel boldly tackles every challenge amid a cascade of plot twists that will delight Harrison's fans."