The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

"A leisurely walk on a foggy San Francisco beach culminates in every parent's worst nightmare—a missing child. Abby turns her head for a matter of seconds to look at a dead seal pup. When she looks back up, her fiancé Jake's six-year-old daughter, Emma, is gone. Abby knows that Emma is still alive and that the clue needed to solve her disappearance is buried in her memory, but the police and even Jake eventually decide that Emma must have drowned. Stopping the search is not an option for Abby; to let go of Emma would be to let go of her own sanity. Richmond (Dream of the Blue Room) has written a mesmerizing novel of loss and grief, hope and redemption, and the endurance of love....(It will appeal to readers of) Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard."

—Karen Fauls-Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Camel Bookmobile by Marsha Hamilton


"New York City librarian Fiona Sweeney has taken an unusual assignment in Kenya—running a bookmobile service powered by camel and serving isolated, seminomadic villages like Mididima, where teenaged library customer Kanika lives with her grandmother, Neema. Taban, a young man severely scarred as a toddler by a hyena, is shunned by most of the community, but he and Kanika share a friendship and a sweet anticipation of Sweeney's every visit. Matani, Mididima's schoolmaster, is a champion of the service, but even he can't do anything when several missing books threaten the village's reputation and set off a chain of events that expose misguided motives, hidden agendas, illicit romance, and tragedy. This third novel from international journalist Hamilton (e.g., The Distance Between Us, an LJ Best Book) presents a rare and balanced perspective on issues surrounding cultural intrusion and the very meaning and necessity of literacy, using rich and evocative prose that skillfully exposes the stark realities of poverty and charity in today's Africa.... The story was suggested by the Camel Mobile Library Service actually provided by Kenya's national library."


—Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Landing: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

"Landing is an old-fashioned love story with a uniquely twenty-first-century twist. This romantic comedy explores the pleasures and sorrows of long-distance relationships - the kind that millions of us now maintain by plane, phone, and the Internet. Sile, an Irishwoman with an Indian mother, is a stylish citizen of the new Dublin. A veteran flight attendant turning 40, she is getting itchy in her career as well as in her domestic life. Jude is a twenty-five-year old Canadian who runs a one-room museum and is stubbornly attached to the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, where she was born and raised. On Jude's first plane trip, their two worlds touch and snag at Heathrow Airport. In the course of the next year, their lives - full of men, women, commitments, and complications - will be drawn into a new, shaky orbit. This story explores age-old questions: Does where you live matter more than who you live with? What would you give up for love, and would you be a fool to do so?"

--BOOK JACKET.

The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark

"London in 1718 is not a pretty place, particularly if you happen to be young, female, pregnant, and alone. Abandoned by her mother and husband, Eliza Campling is taken into the household of an apothecary and his wife, where she believes she will be relieved of her pregnancy only to come to the dawning realization that the apothecary has other designs on the fetus. Grayson Black, in regular correspondence with the great minds of his day, fancies himself a serious scientist researching the effects of external stimuli on grotesque birth deformities. He takes this research further by attempting to influence the outcome of Eliza's pregnancy by treating her with preparations designed to cause hallucinations and terrors. Eliza takes small comfort from her bleak situation in her friendships with a fellow servant and a friendly bookseller and from the possibility of creating and selling her own cure-all medication. As she did so successfully in The Great Stink, Clark again transports readers to another time and place in this mesmerizing tale of life in the mean streets of 18th-century London. "

—Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, Ont. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'
by Paula Deen with Sherry Suib Cohen

"In this richly emotional culinary memoir, Deen, the author of three best-selling cookbooks, star of a popular Food Network television show, and the owner of the celebrated Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah, GA, shares her life story. Writing in a warm, comfortable, and occasionally salty style, Deen talks about everything from her decades-long battle with agoraphobia and her troubled first marriage to the hard work that went into building her first business, The Bag Lady, and the professional and personal successes that followed. A few of Deen's recipes (almost all new) are sprinkled among her stories, which offer a sample of the distinctively Southern cooking that is the foundation of Deen's life and career. This wonderfully nourishing book will have readers laughing, crying, and hungry for more."

—John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

“Cathryn what's-her-name has written an understandable, enjoyable, highly informative book about memory and mental acuity—and all the things that plague and hamper them as we age. This is a tremendously comforting book: You are not alone, and you are not losing your mind. Best of all, there are solutions: simple, sound ways to clear the maddening fog of the middle-aged mind. Though just now, I can't recall any.” – Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Spook

"Memory loss and other cognitive problems are increasingly the bugaboo of aging baby boomers, as well as many of their elders. In her first book, veteran journalist Ramin turns herself into a guinea pig as she seeks ways to restore her own failing memory and growing inability to concentrate. Looking at a wide variety of genetic, biochemical and environmental factors that slow the connections among the brain's 100 billion neurons, especially in the hippocampus, Ramin undertakes 10 interventions, methods of achieving her cognitive enhancement. She logs the ups and downs of medications such as Adderall and Provigil; she looks at dietary supplements and biofeedback. She ends with discussions with experts, such as Nobelist Eric Kandel, about what keeps some people mentally young into old age; the key seems to be having the "mental reserves" gained from challenging one's mind with new kinds of learning—such as learning a new language or studying art—that use different parts of the brain; the right diet and exercise also help...."

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

What Makes Women Happy by Fay Weldon

"Finally, the age-old question of "What do women want?" gets a lighthearted, realistic answer. Prolific author Weldon (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil) shares her opinions and observations about female happiness—the fact that it never lasts more than ten minutes at a time and primarily comes from sex, food, friends, family, shopping, and chocolate. Weldon avoids ponderous analysis and fluffy self-help talk in favor of humor, keen observations, and entertaining parables. Furthermore, Weldon manages to convince her readers that doing good leads to being happy. The engaging chapters—one each is devoted to the seven sources of happiness and the four threats to it—are full of contrasts between nature (how evolution causes us to behave) and nurture (what behavior society expects); women will recognize their own dilemmas in these analyses. And although this work is light on research or evidence, it is certainly an engaging read that will delight women. "

—Erica L. Foley, Flint P.L., MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas by Lois Pryce

“Mix a biting British sense of humor with a Yamaha motorcycle and you get this adventure-filled story about an intrepid woman facing her destiny across the Americas, one rain-soaked, bug-infested, low-quality-taco-filled mile at a time.”---Wendy Dale, author of Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals

"Bored by her desk job at the BBC, Pryce decided to convert her travel daydreams into real-life adventure. At her local travel bookshop, she discovered a book called Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon as well as a few handbooks on motorcycle adventuring, and she was hooked. She bought a small dirt bike, a versatile and affordable Yamaha XT225 Serow, and decided she'd bike from Anchorage, Alaska, to the southernmost city of South America, Ushuaia, Argentina—almost 20,000 miles. In this engaging read, Pryce narrates the adventure. Local bikers helped the witty and sociable Pryce get her Serow fixed, strangers offered shelter or advice and various friends joined her, for better or worse. She rode through flaking dried mud and boulder-strewn donkey paths, through broiling desert heat and blinding Andean snows. Armchair travelers will delight in this funny, vivid account and—almost—wish they'd done it themselves."

~Publishers Weekly Review, Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

Interested in more adventures of Lois? Check out Lois' website to find out about her recent motorcycle adventure in Africa.

Mergers and Acquisitions by Dana Vachon

"Tommy Quinn is a recent Georgetown grad who has just landed the job of his dreams as an investment banker at J. S. Spenser, and the perfect girl, Frances Sloan, the daughter of one of New York's oldest moneyed families. As he travels from the most exclusive ballrooms of the Racquet and Tennis Club to the stuffiest boardrooms of J. S. Spenser, from the golf links of Piping Rock to the bedrooms of Park Avenue, and from the debauched yacht of a Mexican billionaire to the Ritalin-strewn prep school dorm room of his younger brother, he finds that neither the job nor the girl are what they once seemed."

--BOOK JACKET.

American Outrage: A Novel by Tim Green

"Sure, Jake Carlson is making big bucks as a reporter on the tabloid news show American Outrage, but the former foreign correspondent is ashamed of his job, and his personal life is a mess, too. Widowed for a year, he's struggling to keep his 13-year-old adopted son, Sam, on the straight and narrow. Jake finds a renewed sense of purpose, though, when Sam convinces him to help find his birth mother. He knows the hunt will be difficult, but he doesn't realize just how challenging until he starts asking questions. The head of the agency Jake used for the adoption had died, and there's no trace of the agency, which had been operating slightly under the radar, funneling babies from Albania to the U.S. for couples desperate for children. As Jake attempts to tie his investigation into a story to bolster his waning popularity at American Outrage, he and Sam become the target of violence and revenge. Genre veteran Green hits his stride here, with his best novel since his early football thrillers (Outlaws, 1996)."

~ Mary Frances Wilkens, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Wilde Women by Paula Wall

"After the debut success of The Rock Orchard, Wall has another winner. It's Christmas 1932, and smoldering Pearl Wilde returns to Five Points, TN, a town laid low by Prohibition, to open Five of Clubs, a swanky whorehouse. Added to the mix are the incendiary presences of Pearl's two-timing former fiancé, Bourne, and her beautiful, equally guilty sister, Kat. It's a wild romp as hopes and dreams are realized through a bawdy house, an illegal distillery, and a shirt factory. Wall must have been channeling Mae West when writing, for the novel is full of zingy one liners, e.g., "There wasn't enough starch left in the boys to hold up her stare." She takes what could have been stock characters and situations and gives them life and vigor through spicy narrative and snappy dialog."

~ Rebecca Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a 60th Year
by Virginia Ironside

Virginia Ironside currently writes the “Dilemmas” weekly advice column for The Independent in London. This is the author’s first U.S. publication.

"Marie Sharp is about to turn 60, and unlike many of her peers, she has no interest in taking up paragliding or living for three months with a Masai tribe in Africa. She's intent on accepting this new phase of her life, which brings with it the freedom to do old things, such as getting a pension and free prescriptions and, as her neighbor helpfully points out, "tekkin' it eezee, man." Marie, in fact, has such an easygoing attitude toward aging that her friends are constantly inviting her out to dinner and on vacation. She's also excited about becoming a grandmother and babysitting for her grandchild, who has "the air of a very clean goblin" given to "laughing rather inappropriately." And though Marie has declared herself done with romantic entanglements, there's a very kind old friend, recently widowed, who has a crush on her. For Marie, old age is looking pretty wonderful. Ironside is pretty wonderful herself, offering a witty and, at times, poignant depiction of the challenges and freedoms that come with getting older."

~ Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Vanity Fair: "Manic energy, fanatical research, and a wicked sense of humor. Enthralling. A joyful, wild gallop through a joyful, wild time to be an American. "

Heyday by Kurt Andersen

"In this utterly engaging novel, the author of Turn of the Century brings 19th-century America vividly to life, but first he takes us to revolutionary Paris. There, as a bystander, young English gentleman Benjamin Knowles inadvertently causes the death of a policeman. The policeman's enraged older brother swears vengeance and follows Ben to England. But Ben has already given in to a childhood dream and headed to America, where he is charmed by the boisterous young republic. He's also charmed by Polly Lucking, an actress and prostitute he spots across a crowded room, and he meets her after he's fallen in with a radical, wise-cracking journalist named Skaggs. Polly's brother, Duff, is a troubled veteran of the campaign against Mexico—a good Catholic boy, he ended up fighting on the other side—and a stealthy arsonist. Ben and Polly fall in love, but after a misunderstanding Polly heads west with her protégé, Priscilla, and the three men track her down—all the way to Gold Rush California. Meanwhile, Ben's would-be assassin tiptoes behind. While this is a long book, it moves quickly, with historical detail that's involving but never a drag on the action; the characters are beautifully drawn."

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

If You Lived Here: A Novel by Dana Sachs

"Shelley Marino married Martin right out of college, giving up her dreams of traveling the world. It didn't matter that he was 12 years older, divorced, and had two sons from a previous marriage—she was in love. Now, at 42 and after 20 years of marriage, she wants her own child. Unable to get pregnant, Shelley tries to adopt. Her first attempt falls through when the birth mother decides she wants a Slovakian family to adopt her little girl. Soon afterward, Shelley has a chance to adopt a two-month-old Vietnamese boy. Only, Martin doesn't really want to be a parent again. Shelley's friend Xuan Mai, a local Vietnamese woman who runs her own grocery store, sees her life in America as a way to forget her past. But when she learns of Martin's reluctance, she offers to accompany Shelley to Vietnam to help her get the baby. Sachs's debut novel is an interesting look at international adoption and the emotional toll it takes on people. "

~ from Library Journal Review

"The Double Bind may flirt with the classics, but it's not your father's stuffy old tome: it's the sort of book you want to read in one sitting, and it packs a twist at the end that will leave you speechless." Jodi Picoult

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

"Laurel Estabrook, a young social worker living in Vermont, becomes obsessed with a box of photographs that belonged to a deceased homeless man, Bobbie Crocker. An amateur photographer herself, Laurel wonders how someone as destitute as Crocker came to possess such high-quality photos, many of them featuring famous people and, bizarrely, Laurel's childhood town. As she devotes more and more time to researching Crocker's past, her friends and family become concerned for her mental well-being. Six years previously, Laurel was attacked by two men in the woods while riding her bike, and though she recovered enough to finish college and get a job, she remains fragile. Bohjalian, whose Midwives was an Oprah Book Club selection, adds original and creative elements to this tale by blending the story of The Great Gatsby with Laurel's story and including photographs by a real-life homeless man named Bob Campbell. Far from being simply a mystery story, this is a complex exploration of the human psyche and its efforts to heal and survive in whatever manner possible."

~Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Law Lib., Malibu, CA for Library Journal Review

Changing Light: A Novel by Nora Gallagher

"A painter takes a Czechoslovakian scientist into her home and then into her in Gallagher's sober and lyrical first work of fiction. (Her nonfiction includes Things Seen and Unseen and Practicing Resurrection.) Successful New York painter Eleanor Garrigue flees to the New Mexico desert to arouse her muse and escape from her cold marriage to her mentor. Leo Kavan, a Jewish physicist who escaped Europe in the nick of time, lands a spot as a researcher on the Manhattan Project. But after witnessing a colleague's death from radiation poisoning, a deeply distraught Leo goes AWOL from Los Alamos and turns up, delirious and fevered, near Eleanor's house. Eleanor, whose brother is a prisoner of war, finds Leo and nurses him back to health. As Leo recovers, the two find in one another reprieve from the war and their tormented pasts. Eleanor and Leo are marvelous characters-damaged but not prone to melodrama-and through them Gallagher touches on themes of loss, independence and intractable morality. Despite a sluggish start and some weak storytelling moments-Gallagher tends to pile on description, and some science-heavy passages could be better massaged-Gallagher's first foray into fiction distinguishes itself as an intriguing and spiritual tale. "

~ Publisher Weekly Review

The Art of Losing: A Novel by Keith Dixon

"Michael Jacobs is an independent filmmaker in New York City whose just-released third film flopped like the first two. With no money and no prospects, he agrees to help fair-weather friend Sebby Laslo fix horse races. Unsurprisingly, the plan fails in spectacular fashion, and Michael, Sebby and Thierry, the jockey they're in cahoots with, end up on the wrong side of some very bad dudes. Loans from Michael's father and Beck Trier, a successful indie director Michael wishes was his girlfriend, aren't enough to pay off mounting debts, and when the surefire score the trio cooks up to balance the books backfires, bookies and bagmen take off the kid gloves. Dixon, an editor at the New York Times, writes with convincing detail and lays on thick the bookmaking and horse-racing argot ("a clear field of three for win, place, and show, with Thierry on the sure-bet and Vato on the placer"), though Michael's actions at the climax are more a function of plot than character."

~ Publisher Weekly Review

Did you know that flour dust is explosive?

Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger

"Hostess-brand Twinkies® are an iconic American snack food. Who hasn't heard of these cream-filled snack cakes or seen them on grocery shelves? Perhaps it's because of their fame that so many rumors have grown around them. (Do Twinkies® really have an infinite shelf life? Are they really a concoction of chemicals and not actually food?) Ettlinger (The Hardware Cyclopedia) tackles these rumors, also explaining the tongue-twisting list of ingredients on a package of Twinkies®. Although he is not a food chemist, nutritionist, or any one of a number of people who may be interested in deconstructing Twinkies®, Ettlinger is a concerned father embarrassed at having been unable to answer his children when they asked, "What's Polysorbate 60?" and "Where does Polysorbate 60 come from?" Here he answers their questions while providing an insightful look into the processed food industry. Ettlinger didn't intend this book to discuss the issues surrounding the nutritional value of these constructed foodstuffs, however, so readers looking for support of their particular lifestyle should turn elsewhere."

~ by Rachel M. Minkin, Graduate Theological Union Library for Library Journal Review

"For those of us who like our crime writing with a dose of dark humor, Vinnie's Head is the ticket, great characters, pace, style, and story. Marc Lecard has chops!" - Christopher Moore, New York Times Bestselling Author

Vinnie's Head by Marc Lecard

"Lecard, in his endlessly entertaining debut, shows great skill in pacing and characterization. Smalltime Long Island crook Johnnie LoDuco is on the lam after being unjustly fingered as the mastermind of a convenience store heist. While passing the time fishing, he pulls from the water the severed head of his best friend, Vinnie McCloskey-Schmidt, a computer-savvy con artist who had recently promised to bring LoDuco into his business. This grisly discovery leads to an engaging comedy of errors, as LoDuco struggles to stay one step ahead of crooked cops, an amiable serial killer, mobsters and mysterious figures who may be pulling the strings of an international financial conspiracy. The violence, though plentiful, is cartoonish, and Lecard's appealing antihero has a distinctive voice reminiscent of Kinky Friedman's detective alter ego. Sure to appeal to Elmore Leonard fans, this first novel augurs a long and successful career for its author. "

~ Publisher Weekly Review

Fowl Weather by Bob Tarte

"How thirty-nine animals and one sock monkey took over my life."

"This follow-up to Enslaved by Ducks continues Tarte's tale of household life as directed by a menagerie made up of bird brains—real, honest-to-goodness bird brains. If you think taking care of your pet dog or cat can be amusing, imagine what it must be like sharing your home with 12 ducks, three parrots, six geese, two parakeets, one dove, nine hens, one turkey, two rabbits, and three cats. Things are bound to get exciting on a daily basis. In the first book, Tarte demonstrated how a positive attitude and a good sense of humor can make everyday problems roll off his back, like water off of a duck. Fowl Weather features more tragedy, with the death of Tarte's father, the Alzheimer's diagnosis of his mother, and the death of several of his favorite pets. Nevertheless, Tarte's furry and feathered charges serve as role models for taking life as it comes and keeping perspective in a sometimes insane world. Look no further than Stanley Sue, Hamilton, or Richie to know that even birds have personality. A delightful, one-sitting read."

~ by Edell Schaefer, Brookfield P.L., WI for Library Journal Review