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Volume 24, Number 11 November 2014 Home | IBW Index

Table of Contents

Reviewer's Choice Art Shelf Business Shelf
Needlecraft Shelf Graphic Novel Shelf Audiobook Shelf
Library CD Shelf Library DVD Shelf Blu-ray Shelf
Christian Studies Shelf Judaic Studies Shelf Cookbook Shelf
Wine Shelf American History Shelf World History Shelf
Civil War Shelf Metaphysical Studies Shelf Religion/Spirituality Shelf
Memoir Shelf Photography Shelf Self-Help Shelf
Theatre/Cinema Shelf Fiction Shelf Sports Shelf
Language Studies Shelf Autism Shelf Education Shelf
Social Issues Shelf Archaeology Shelf Science Shelf
Fantasy/SciFi Shelf Music Shelf Travel Shelf
Writing/Publishing Shelf Literary Studies Shelf Mystery/Suspense Shelf
Fashion Shelf Pets/Wildlife Shelf Biography Shelf
Military Shelf Psychology Shelf Mathematics Shelf
Native American Studies Shelf Women's Studies Shelf Political Science Shelf
Large Print Shelf Health/Medicine Shelf Biology Shelf
2015 Calendar Shelf    


Reviewer's Choice

The Political Economy of Ageing and Later Life
Alan Walker & Liam Foster, editors
Edward Elgar Publishing
9 Dewey Court, Northampton, MA 01060-3815
www.e-elgar.com
9781843762485, $325.00, 640pp, www.amazon.com

Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Alan Walker (Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology, University of Sheffield, UL) and Liam Foster (Lecturer in Social Work, University of Sheffield, UK), "The Political Economy of Ageing and Later Life: Critical Perspectives" 640 page compendium comprised of thirty of the most important and influential articles and papers on ageing and later life of the past half century. Organized in four major parts, "The Political Economy of Ageing and Later Life: Critical Perspectives" examine policy creation and implementation, practice and critical gerontology including both feminist and international perspectives. Including an original introduction and key works not available in scholarly libraries, "The Political Economy of Ageing and Later Life: Critical Perspectives" is a critical assembly of work and will be of immense assistance to anyone looking to understand the consequences of our ageing population on society. A seminal work of scholarship, "The Political Economy of Ageing and Later Life: Critical Perspectives" is highly recommended for academic library collections.

The Iowa State Fair
Kurt Ullrich
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000
9781609382780, $25.00, www.uiowapress.org

The Iowa State Fair covers the Midwest experience in general through Iowa's state fair, and combines black and white photos with discussion of the Fair's experiences and animals. From Big Wheel races to fair queen contests, horses and pigs to prize-winning produce, and Iowa's best ear of corn, this is a lovely collection of winning images of Iowa's best party, and is highly recommended for any interested in the state and its agricultural base.

Little Hawk and Lone Wolf
Raymond C. Kaquatosh
Wisconsin Historical Society Press
816 State Street, Madison, WI 53575
9780870206504 $22.95 www.wisconsinhistory.org

Little Hawk and Lone Wolf: A Memoir is the life testimony of Raymond Kaquatosh, also known as "Little Hawk", who was born in 1924 on Wisconsin's Menominee Reservation. He tells of living at an Indian boarding school, his years of military service, the woman who would become his wife, and the lessons he learned from a reservation timber wolf he befriended. Little Hawk and Lone Wolf is an unforgettable coming-of-age tale of the Great Depression, World War II, and postwar era, touching upon the generational connections between young people and their elders. Highly recommended, especially for public library collections.

Best Food Writing
Holly Hughes, editor
Lifelong Books / Da Capo Press
www.dacapopress.com
c/o Perseus Book Group
250 W. 57th St., Suite 1500
New York, NY 10107
9780738217918 $15.99 www.perseusbooksgroup.com

Best Food Writing 2014 is an anthology of the past year's finest culinary essays from magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Contributors range from award-winning writers to writer-chefs, rising star bloggers, and bestselling authors. From celebrations of home cooking, to food-related social issues, to a historical and contemporary scrutiny of the traditional "last meal" for prisoners on death row, Best Food Writing 2014 is fascinating, enlightening, and enriching.

Paper Blossoms, Butterflies & Birds
Ray Marshall
Chronicle Books
680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
9781452113913 $40.00 www.chroniclebooks.com

Paper Blossoms, Butterflies & Birds is a pop-up book for all ages that can also serve as an eye-catching centerpiece. There is no text, simply a handful of two-page spreads that, when the book is opened and laid flat, reveal a striking arrangement of paper pop-up flowers, butterflies, and even birds. Paper Blossoms, Butterflies & Birds adds a lovely touch of color and cheer to any room year-round! Also highly recommended are author Ray Marshall's previous pop-up books, including "Paper Blossoms: A Book of Beautiful Bouquets for the Table" and "Paper Blossoms Pop-Up Notecards".


The Art Shelf

Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture
Patricia J. Graham
Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Drive
North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436
9784805312506 $24.95 www.tuttlepublishing.com

Former professor and museum curator Patricia J. Graham presents Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture, a studious exploration of the artistic ideals that permeate Japanese culture, from its architecture and fine objects of art to everyday utensils or snack food packaging. Full color photography on almost every page illustrate Graham's insights into the history, traditions, and aesthetic principles of expressions ranging from folk crafts to architecture, clothing, pottery, woodblock printings, silk hangings and much more. A treasury for art connoisseurs as well as students and scholars in search of inspiration, Japanese Design: Art, Aesthetics & Culture is highly recommended.

Lion Dance Drawing
Bambang Edison Soekanto
China Books & Periodicals, Inc.
360 Swift Avenue, Suite 48
South San Francisco, CA 94080
9780835100656 $16.95 www.chinabooks.com

Lion Dance Drawing: The First Book on How to Draw the Lion Dance is an instructional guide designed to teach artists of all skill and experience levels how to accurately draw the Lion Dance, a beloved Chinese cultural tradition often used in parades, or to celebrate the New Year. The festively colored lion/dragon costume requires multiple people to act as the segments of its body and head, and is absolutely unforgettable in action! Accurately representing the details of the costume at various viewing angles, let alone the dancer's movements, is a complex task illuminated with multiple black-and-white sketches as well as explicit instructions. Filled with tips, tricks, and techniques that can be applied to all sorts of drawing projects, Lion Dance Drawing is an excellent supplementary self-teaching reference.


The Business Shelf

Own Your Future
Paul B. Brown with Charles F. Kiefer and Leonard A. Schlesinger
Amacom
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
9780814434093, $22.00, www.amacombooks.org

OWN YOUR FUTURE: HOW TO THINK LIKE AN ENTREPRENEUR AND THRIVE IN AN UNPREDICTABLE ECONOMY is based on extensive research and interviews with hundreds of serial entrepreneurs who have begun two or more successful companies, and offers a model all business owners of any size enterprise can use: Act. Learn. Build. Repeat. While these may seem like basic directions, they actually pinpoint the thinking processes of successful ventures, and provide a logical understanding of the basic elements of successfully-applied business logic. Any looking to incorporate the flexibility of creative thinking into an organizational structure will find the ideals sound, the applications specific, and the techniques important for any entrepreneurial venture.

Overfished Ocean Strategy
Nadya Zhexembayeva, Ph.D.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650
San Francisco, CA 94104-2916
9781609949648, $27.95, www.bkconnection.com

Overfished Ocean Strategy: How Powering Up Innovation Can Help to Save a Resource-Deprived World discusses how businesses need to make resource scarcity of prime importance to survive long term. Managers are invited to eschew the throwaway mentality in favor of longer-ranging consideration of resource allocation and management. Chapters show how this new economy is focusing on reducing costs over spending, and display five basic principles for innovating under such conditions. From finding value in discarded by-products to changing habits for resource conservation, this packs in plenty of details key to both conservation and better business practices.

Why China?
Debra Lane Wright
China Books & Periodicals, Inc.
360 Swift Avenue, Suite 48
South San Francisco, CA 94080
9780835100618 $19.95 www.chinabooks.com

Debra Wright is an American who has lived and worked in China for over eight years as an international business consultant. She did not speak fluent Chinese when she first arrived; her experiences as she learned to understand and adapt to Chinese business (and everyday) culture form the heart of Why China? Finding My Way in a Land of 1.4 Billion. Wright's memoir spotlights critical cultural differences that can torpedo attempts at Western-Chinese business partnerships. As entertaining as it is educational, Why China? is absolutely fascinating to page through, and an absolute "must-read" for Western business travelers! "...remember who pays for the translator; most are hired by Chinese. They are the true boss; translators answer to them, not the foreigners. Translators will please their boss first. Translators will usually not translate questions or information they feel might be offensive to Chinese bosses. Anything that they judge will 'not please the boss,' such as hard yet much required information, will be overlooked. It never gets translated. Foreigners would do better if they could hire their own translators but this is not always possible."

Moms Mean Business
Erin Baebler and Lara Galloway
Career Press Inc.
220 West Parkway, Unit 12
Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
9781601633507 $15.99 www.careerpress.com

Moms Mean Business: A Guide To Creating A Successful Company and Happy Life as a Mom Entrepreneur lives up to its title as a practical "how-to" guide to time management and business planning. "...group tasks so that you can minimize transition times. Every time we move from one task to another, we lose valuable time because it takes our mind time to change focus. That's why it's pretty smart to group similar tasks together so that you are tackling them one after the other. If you need to make sales calls, set aside enough time to make them all (or at least several in a row). You'll benefit from the practice that comes with the repetition..." Packed with no-nonsense advice and encouragement, and emphasizing the benefits of flexibility and adaptation while staying true to one's greatest priorities, Moms Mean Business is a "must-read" for any mother with do-it-yourself entrepreneurial spirit!

Creating Authentic Organizations
Robin Ryde and Lisa Sofianos
Kogan Page USA
1518 Walnut Street, Suite 1100
Philadelphia, PA 19102
9780749471439 $29.95 www.koganpageusa.com

Creating Authentic Organizations: Bringing Meaning and Engagement Back to Work is a leadership guide to empowering employees. Workers who find their jobs meaningful have an increased sense of responsibility and adaptiveness, leading to greater productivity. "...when you are offered the Freedom to Operate in your work environment this requires that you bring everything that you can to solve the problems to hand. Very much like the practice of coaching, the coach does not provide the answers to the issues that the coachee presents, rather they pose questions that inspire deep reflection and create the freedom to respond." Emphasizing the importance of workplace authenticity, the freedom to operate, the freedom to speak, and the freedom to actualize, Creating Authentic Organizations offers management concepts, principles, and team-building strategies that can be readily applied to virtually any business or non-profit entity. Highly recommended as a supplemental resource for managers and human resources professionals.

Supplier Relationship Management
Jonathan O'Brien
Kogan Page USA
1518 Walnut Street, Suite 1100
Philadelphia, PA 19102
www.koganpageusa.com
9780749468064 $75.00 print / $52.49 Kindle www.amazon.com

Supplier Relationship Management: Unlocking the Hidden Value in Your Supply Base is an advanced guide to managing suppliers, particularly in large-scale businesses or growing corporations who may have a multitude of different partners. Chapters address how to identify one's most valuable suppliers, maximizing value of the business relationship, adapting to the fluctuations of a global supply base, encouraging improvements in one's suppliers, and much more. "Punitive incentives will drive certain supplier behavior around ensuring agreed obligations are met. They will be effective and even collaborative only to the extent of meeting these obligations and nothing beyond this. For a construction project that must be completed on time this type of incentive is entirely appropriate. However, punitive incentives will fail to drive a supplier to help innovate with us, instead here incentives must be more beneficial to them." Supplier Relationship Management is an accessible yet invaluable reference for corporate managers and executives.


The Needlecraft Shelf

Holiday Hats for Babies
Debby Ware
The Taunton Press
63 South Main Street, Newtown, CT 06470
9781627101028 $22.95 www.taunton.com

Illustrated with a wealth of full-color photography of infants wearing its festively knitted caps, Holiday Hats for Babies: Caps, Berets & Beanies to Knit for Every Occasion offers twenty-five adorable and memorable patterns. Familiarity with the fundamentals of knitting is presumed, but a brief supplementary guide to knitting abbreviations, special stitches, metric conversions, and more is included at the end. Holiday Hats for Babies, a wonderful resource of quick and easy projects perfect including the littlest family members in any celebration!

Recreating Antique Quilts
Wendy Sheppard
Landauer Corporation
3100 NW 101st Street, Suite A
Urbandale, Iowa 50322
9781935726630 $24.95 www.landauercorp.com

Recreating Antique Quilts: Re-envisioning, Modifying and Simplifying Museum Quilts offers ten projects for quilters of all skill and experience levels; if one can quilt and assemble two cloth squares, then one can follow these patterns for crafting beautiful re-imagined renditions of venerable antique quilts. Full color photography and pattern diagrams clarify the methodical instructions for each project. Recreating Antique Quilts is a wonderful resource for creating unforgettable holiday gifts, recommended for quilting enthusiasts.

Simple Shape Quilts
Katheryn Russi & Rose Schutte
American Quilters Society Publishing
PO Box 3290, Paducah, KY 42002-3290
9781604601398, $24.95, www.americanquilter.com

Simple Shape Quilts uses four simple shapes to build innovative modern quilt designs, making for a perfect pick for beginners new to quilting. Here are simple squares, rectangles, and more that are designed for easy beginning success using little more than a standard home sewing machine. The projects have a complicated, professional feel but are designed to be visually attractive and appealing to beginning and advanced quilters alike. The result is a presentation pairing patterns with attractive quilt designs that beginning to intermediate quilters will relish.

That Patchwork Place/Martingale
19021 Avenue NE, Bothell, WA 98011
www.shopmartingale.com

Dana Bolyard's IMAGINE QUILTS: 11 PATTERNS FROM EVERYDAY INSPIRATIONS (9781604684094, $22.99) comes from a popular quilt blogger who here offers keys to innovations, providing designs for small wall hangings to full-sized bed quilts. Each is accompanied by step-by-step directions and a focus on unique projects that use colors successfully, help newcomers learn to apply traditional blocks in new ways, and contain fresh variations and inspirations for techniques. With patterns accompanied by full-color quilt photos, this is a top pick for beginning and advanced quilters alike. Myra Harder's NAP AND NOD: 12 ADORABLE BABY QUILTS (9781604683776, $24.99) provides instructions for some 12 baby quilts from designer Myra Harder, who teaches basic techniques and how they apply to a baby quilt. From applique and monogrammed lettering to creating artistic quilts that can be used for baby or for a wall hanging, this provides a range of styles, techniques and fabrics quilters can use to create lovely quilts for tots and babies alike.


The Graphic Novel Shelf

Les Miserables
Victor Hugo, original author
Adapted by Crystal Silvermoon
Art by SunNeko Lee
English script by Stacy King
Udon Entertainment
www.udoncomics.com
Morpheus Publishing Limited
9781972925164 $19.99 www.mangaclassics.com

Part of the "Manga Classics" series drawn in the iconic style of manga (Japanese comics), Les Miserables (the title is a French phrase meaning "The Miserable Ones") is a black-and-white graphic novel adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel of the human struggle against adversity. Set in France during the years after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the story is against the backdrop of a suffering populace, beset by famine and unemployment, and woefully neglected by the monarchist government. One miserable soul among many is Jean Valjean, who was condemned to nearly two decades in prison for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. Recently released, he is turned away from every doorstep, and has no way to support himself - until a merciful man of the cloth uses the priceless silver utensils of his church to offer Valjean a chance for redemption. Yet Valjean is ever hounded by the implacable policeman Javert, and his efforts to evade capture become more difficult when he adopts Cosette, a severely neglected young girl. Star-crossed love, unyielding duty, and a restless populace's desperate attempts for revolution weave a tragic tale - amid such tumultuous world, is there any ray of hope of a better life for Valjean or Cosette? Les Miserable is as faithful to the original novel as possible, given that a significant amount of the book's story is necessarily omitted in order to complete the saga in a single manga volume. Highly recommended, especially for high school and public library graphic novel collections.

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austin, original author
Adapted by Stacy King
Art by Po Tse
Udon Entertainment
www.udoncomics.com
Morpheus Publishing Limited
9781927925188 $19.99 www.mangaclassics.com

Part of the "Manga Classics" series drawn in the iconic style of manga (Japanese comics), Pride and Prejudice is a black-and-white graphic novel adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel about customs, courtship, and reputation among the landed gentry of England during the early 1800's. The protagonist Elizabeth Bennet is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman. Her mother lacks social graces and is obsessed about finding suitable husbands for each daughter - not an easy task. Not only are sufficiently wealthy men difficult to woo given the Bennet family's less-than-spectacular level of opulence, but not all of the Bennet daughters are agreeable to social norms. Elizabeth herself is too strong-willed to compromise on an insincere or foolish husband, and the youngest Bennet daughter has a shocking taste for common soldiers! When Elizabeth meets the reserved Mr. Darcy at a ball, her reaction is anything but positive - in a social circle where the highest importance is placed on appearances, Darcy goes out of his way to rebuff others and be reclusive. Her opinion of him worsens when she learns that he allegedly denied a childhood friend his rightful inheritance, and even worse, prevented Elizabeth's sickly older sister from marrying a gentleman she loved with all her heart! Will pride and prejudice make Elizabeth and Darcy into bitter enemies for life? Wonderfully brought to life with clean, sweeping artwork, Pride and Prejudice is especially recommended for high school and public library graphic novel collections.

Tales of Honor: On Basilisk Station
Based on novels by David Weber
Matt Hawkins, author
Jung-Geun Yoon, artist
Top Cow Productions, Inc.
www.tales-of-honor.com
9781632150202 $19.99 www.topcow.com

Tales of Honor is the full-color, comic book series adaptation of the popular military science-fiction novel series by David Weber. The saga features a strong, self-sacrificing female protagonist in Honor Harrington, a career military woman who fights to defend her home planet from a voracious, sprawling galactic empire bent on conquest and exploitation. Tales of Honor: On Basilisk Station collects issues #1-5 of the comic series. The story, told partly in the present when Honor is a prisoner of war (from the seventh novel, "In Enemy Hands") and partly through flashbacks to Honor's past (from the first novel, "On Basilisk Station"), is a dark saga of hard choices against seemingly insurmountable odds. Honor shows exemplary military potential, yet she lacks connections to the ruling elite. As she works to prove herself to her superiors and her starship crew, she must contend with mistrust, constant scrutiny, the scorn of her second-in-command (who wanted to be promoted in her stead), the arrogance of a shortsighted weapons designer, and more. Assigned to the decrepit Basilisk Station, she is all but set up to fail in her mission... and then things go from bad to explosively worse! Tales of Honor explores dark issues such as interstellar war and attempted rape, but is not excessively gory or graphic, and is suitable for older teen as well as adult readers. Highly recommended, especially for connoisseurs of quality military science fiction.


The Audiobook Shelf

Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation
Bill Nye, author and narrator
Corey S. Powell, editor
Macmillan Audio
175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 315
New York, NY 10010
9781427252098 $39.99 www.macmillanaudio.com

Scientist, engineer, comedian, inventor, and creator-host of the Emmy Award-winning PBS/Discovery Channel show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" presents Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, an exploration of how the science of humanity's origins directly affects our everyday life, and how acknowledging evolution and the workings of nature is crucial to understanding science itself. Now in an unabridged audiobook rendition, Undeniable explains why race doesn't really exist; the pros and cons of genetically modified food; the transformations wrought by 4.5 billion years of time; and why the search for alien life just might find aliens here on Earth! Thoroughly accessible to listeners of all backgrounds, Undeniable is an impassioned defense of the scientific method - humankind's most reliable and adaptable means of understanding the natural world as it truly is, not how dogma dictates it should be. 8 CDs, 9.5 hours.

Mary and the Giant
Philip K. Dick, author
Performed by Kate Rudd
Brilliance Corporation
PO Box 887
Grand Haven, MI 49417
9781455814404 $14.99 www.brillianceaudio.com

Mary and the Giant is the unabridged audiobook rendition of Philip K. Dick's classic novel following a young woman in 1950s California. Mary Anne Reynolds is a free-spirited soul; she falls passionate in love first with a middle-aged record shop owner, then with a black blues singer. Her neighbors in the small town of Pacific Park are collectively offended by her disregard of social norms, including their expectations of how a woman should live and who she should date. Will Mary's amorous relationships force her to get out of town before she's metaphorically tarred and feathered? A literary precursor to the 1960's upheval in women's everyday roles, Mary and the Giant is an excellent selection for public library audiobook collections. 7 CDs, 7 hours 43 min. Also highly recommended is the unabridged audiobook version of Philip K. Dick's saga of deteriorating marriage and emotional trauma, "Puttering About in a Small Land" (9781455814442, $14.99, 9 CDs, 11 hours, 3 min.).

Winter Street
Elin Hilderbrand, author
Read by Erin Bennett
Hachette Audio
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
9781478955016 $30.00 www.HachetteAudio.com

Winter Street is the unabridged audiobook adaptation of a heartwarming Christmas story. Kelley Quinn is the father of four grown if somewhat dysfunctional children - the eldest is struggling with guilt over his work as an unethical hedge fund manager, the second is a bartender conducting a questionable love affair, the third is a daughter dating a commitment-shy man, and the fourth shocked the family by joining the Marines. With three drama-prone older children, the fourth child unreachable in Afghanistan, a second wife who's a little too affectionate with another man in a Santa Claus suit, whiskey, a small house fire, and more craziness, who can possibly save the family's holiday gathering? It just might be none other than Quinn's ex-wife! Winter Street is a playfully entertaining audio adventure, especially recommended for getting into the holiday spirit. 6 CDs, 7 hours.

The Woman Who Would Be King
Kara Cooney
Read by the author
Books on Tape
c/o Random House Audio Books
1745 Broadway, 5th floor
New York, NY 10019
www.randomhouseaudio.com
9780804128360 $45.00 www.booksontape.com

Kara Cooney (associate professor of Egyptian art and architecture, UCLA) presents The Woman Who Would Be King, an unabridged audiobook rendition of her studious yet accessible account of Hatshepsut, Egypt's second documented female pharaoh; her rule took place almost 1500 years before the birth of Christ. Records indicate that Hatshepsut was a successful leader; she oversaw a period of prolific construction. Yet twenty years after her reign, her likeness was systematically eradicated (literally chiseled off the stone) from most but not all records of the pharaohs. How did she obtain such power and success in the male-dominated ancient world, and why was there an attempt to erase her memory? The Woman Who Would Be King is an extraordinary fusion of biography, archaeology, and analysis of women's roles, highly recommended especially for public library audiobook collections. 9 CDs, 10.5 hours.

The Corinthian
Georgette Heyer, author
Georgina Sutton, narrator
Naxos of America, Inc.
1810 Columbia Avenue, Suite 28
Franklin, TN 37064
9781843798552 $47.98 www.naxosaudiobooks.com

Superbly performed by theater actress Georgina Sutton, The Corinthian is the unabridged audiobook version of a classic novel first published in 1940. Sir Richard Wyndham, the titular Corinthian, is a wealthy, handsome man weary of his family's endless pressure to get married. Yearning for an escape from the doldrums, he elopes with the plucky Penelope Creed, who is herself evading an arranged marriage. The unusual duo form an alliance that escalates into zany excitement, as they cross-dress, bump into escaped criminals, and even become unlikely heroes as the situation warrants. A hint of mutual attraction grows stronger the more they work together, in this delightfully timeless adventure! 7 CDs, 8 hours 22 min.

An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War
Patrick Taylor, author
John Keating, narrator
Macmillan Audio
175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 315
New York, NY 10010
9781427243850 $39.99 www.macmillanaudio.com

An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War is the unabridged audiobook rendition of Patrick Taylor's novel about an Irish doctor whose dreams of marriage to his sweetheart are interrupted by World War II. Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly is assigned to the HMS Warspite, a gigantic battleship with a crew of twelve hundred. Fingal struggles to tend to the crew's injuries as well as the casualties of those brought aboard... and the temptation to break his fidelity to his hometown beloved is very strong! Contrasting the wartime violence is Fingal's more sedate life over twenty years later, in which his deadliest challenge appears to be combating an outbreak of German measles... until a dark secret threatens to shatter his hard-won comfort. Nuanced and enthralling, An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War is highly recommended for public library audiobook collections and connoisseurs of quality stories. 11 CDs, 13.5 hours.

Doctor Who: The Light At The End
Nicholas Briggs, et al.
Big Finish Productions
PO Box: PO Box 3787, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 3TF
http://www.bigfinish.com
9781781781074, $TBA, www.amazon.com

November 23rd 1963 the day that Bob Dovie's life is ripped apart. It's also a day that sets in motion a catastrophic chain of events which forces the first eight incarnations of the Doctor to fight for their very existence as an unknown and insidious chaos unfolds within the TARDIS, breaking the barriers of time break apart. From suburban England through war-torn alien landscapes and into a deadly, artificial dimension, all these Doctors and their companions must struggle against the power of an unfathomable, alien technology. From the very beginning, it is clear that the Master is somehow involved. By the end, for the Doctors, there may only be darkness. "Doctor Who: The Light At The End" is a complete 'theatre of the mind' experience starring an impressive cast of characters including five of the television Doctors (Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann) along with Louise Jameson (Leela), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Sophie Aldred (Ace), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), and Geoffrey Beevers (The Master). With flawless production values, complete and unabridged, "Doctor Who: The Light At The End" is an absolute "must" for the legions of Doctor Who fans and will make an enduringly popular addition to community library audio book collections.

Cat Trick
Sofie Kelly, author
Read by Cassandra Campbell
Books on Tape
www.booksontape.com
c/o Random House Audio Books
c/o The Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 5th floor, New York, NY 10019
9780553399431 $45.00 www.randomhouseaudio.com

Cat Trick is the unabridged audiobook rendition of a novel in the "Magical Cats Mystery" series, following small-town librarian Kathleen Paulson and her two mysterious cats, Owen and Hercules. Kathleen's cats have a preternatural talent for uncovering motives behind murder, and the three detectives-by-necessity are on the case when hometown native turned big-shot tour company executive turns up deceased. The victim was widely disliked, but who could have hated his vacation package plans enough to kill him? 8 CDs, 9 hours. And who else could be on the assassin's hit list? Also highly recommended for fans of the series is the unabridged audiobook "Final Catcall" (9780553399462, $45.00, 8 CDs, 9 hours), a mystery that puts Kathleen and her capricious cats between boyfriends, a relocated theater festival, and a murderous web of blackmail and fraud!

Mortal Arts
Anna Lee Huber, author
Read by Heather Wilds
Tantor Media, Inc.
6 Business Park Road, Old Saybrook, CT 06475
9781494504915 $44.99 www.tantor.com

The unabridged audiobook adaptation of the second novel in the "Larby Darby Mystery" series, Mortal Arts is set in 1830 Scotland, following the journey Lady Kiera Darby. Kiera travels to Edinburgh with her family so that her pregnant sister can be close to medical care, but a lethal mystery interrupts the family. The older brother of Kiera's longtime friend has recently been released from an insane asylum, and a local girl has gone missing; accusations fly, and it's up to Kiera to prove a family friend's innocence! An impressionistic period piece, Mortal Arts is a treat for connoisseurs of historical mysteries. Also highly recommended is the first "Larby Darby Mystery" novel, "The Anatomist's Wife".

Crave the Night
Lara Adrian, author
www.laraadrian.com
Hillary Huber, narrator
Books on Tape
www.booksontape.com
c/o Random House Audio Books
c/o The Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 5th floor, New York, NY 10019
9780385359641 $45.00 www.randomhouseaudio.com

Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel is the unabridged audiobook version of an intense paranormal romance. Nathan is one of the Breed vampires, born and raised as an elite warrior tasked with protecting both mortals and vampires. Utterly ruthless in the execution of his duty, Nathan is confounded when he crosses paths with a privileged woman who has been promised to another Breed male of high status. She may be the key to uncovering the deadliest enemy Nathan has ever faced, and to fall in love with her can only bring chaos to the Breed's rigid social order. She knows this as surely as he does, yet her attraction is undeniable, and she finds his seductive qualities nigh-irresistible. Crave the Night is story of white-hot passion and dangerously looming consequences, enthusiastically recommended. 9 CDs, 11.5 hours.

Love Letters
Debbie Macomber, author
Lorelei King, narrator
Random House Audio Books
c/o The Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 5th floor, New York, NY 10019
9780553398786 $40.00 www.randomhouseaudio.com

Love Letters: A Rose Harbor Novel is the unabridged audiobook adaptation of a novel about the healing power of love. Cedar Cove's Rose Harbor Inn bustles during the busy summer season; proprietor Jo Marie Rose and handyman Mark Taylor spend quite a bit of time around each other, but each has a secret in their past that prevents them from growing too close to one another. Others have also come to Cedar Cove to confront inner obstacles - twenty-three-year-old Ellie Reynolds is about to meet the man she's been corresponding with for months for the first time, and Maggie and Roy Porter are hoping to salvage their floundering marriage. A story of trust, and the difficulties of attempting to rebuild, and the heart's innermost hope, Love Letters is highly recommended especially for connoisseurs of quality romance. 7 CDs, 9 hours.

Slimy Underbelly
Kevin J. Anderson
Brilliance Corporation
PO Box 887, Grand Haven, MI 49417
www.brillianceaudio.com
9781480584044, $19.99, www.amazon.com

There's something fishy going on in the Unnatural Quarter. Bodies are floating face-down, the plumbing is backing up, and something smells rotten - even to a zombie detective like Dan Shamble. Diving into the slimy underbelly of a diabolical plot, Dan comes face-to-tentacles with an amphibious villain named Ah'Chulhu (to which the usual response is "Gesundheit!"). With his snap-happy gang of gator-guys - former pets flushed down the toilet - Ah'Chulhu wreaks havoc beneath the streets. While feuding weather wizards kick up storms and a gang of thieving lawn gnomes continues their reign of terror, Dan Shamble is running out of time - before the whole stinking city goes down the drain.... A master storyteller of the first order, In "Slimy Underbelly", Keven J. Anderson has created a world where a zombie private eye and his ghost of a girl friend take on all manner of 'things that go bump in the night' to solve a genuine case of 'whodunit' that will have immense appeal to fans of a well crafted and original fantasy. This completed and unabridged audio book edition is superbly narrated by Phil Gigante and is highly recommended for personal and community library audio book collections. (7 CDs; 8 hours, 17 minutes).

Shuttlecock
Graham Swift
Brilliance Corporation
PO Box 887, Grand Haven, MI 49417
www.brillianceaudio.com
9781491573730, $14.99, www.amazon.com

Prentis, the narrator of this nightmarish novel, catalogs "dead crimes" for a branch of the London Police Department and suspects that he is going crazy. His files keep vanishing. His boss subjects him to cryptic taunts. His family despises him. And as Prentis desperately tries to hold on to the scraps of his sanity, he uncovers a conspiracy of blackmail and betrayal that extends from his department and into the buried past of his father, a war hero code-named "Shuttlecock" - and, lately, a resident of a hospital for the insane. "Suttlecock" by Garham Swift, and performed by James Wilby, is a finely crafted novel, deftly complex, solidly entertaining, and presented with flawless production values, is very highly recommended for both personal and community library collections.

Spark
John Twelve Hawks, author
Read by Scott Brick
Random House Audio Books
c/o The Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 5th floor
New York, NY 10019
9780553399066 $40.00 www.randomhouseaudio.com

Spark is the unabridged audiobook version of a dark thriller novel with a remorseless villain protagonist. Jacob Underwood is a contract assassin working for the Special Services Section of DBG, a voracious multinational conglomerate. A motorcycle accident has left him with Cotard's syndrome, a mental illness which causes him to believe he is dead - nothing more than an amoral empty "Shell". His latest assignment is to eliminate a young woman who has seemingly disappeared, and who is suspected of stealing either money or sensitive corporate information from DBG. A tangled web of ruthless machinations lurk underneath this assignment, that will push Jacob to his cognitive as well as physical limits, in this suspenseful edge-of-one's seat saga! 9 CDs, 11 1/2 hours.

The Motherf*er with the Hat
Stephen Adly Guirgis, author
Performed by Chris Rock, et. al.
L.A. Theatre Works
681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291
9781580819343 $29.95 www.latw.org

An audiobook performance featuring the original Broadway cast (Chris Rock as Ralph D., Bobby Cannavale as Jackie, Elizabeth Rodriguez as Veronica, Annabella Sciorra as Victoria, and Yul Vazquez as Cousin Julio), The Motherf*er with the Hat is the next best thing to witnessing this profanely hysterical, award-winning dark comedy play in person. Jackie is a former drug dealer recently released from prison; he burns to be with his drug-addict girlfriend Veronica, but just as the two are about to jump into bed, Jackie spots a hat that he knows is not his. Who is the "motherf*er with the hat" that Veronica has been sleeping with? A fractiously hilarious tangle ensues! 2 CDs, 1 hour 33 min.

Hachette Audio
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.hachetteaudio.com

Sandra Brown's THE SILKEN WEB (9781476927471, $25.00) is narrated by January LaVoy, whose New York-based voice, stage and TV background meshes perfectly with the story of family connections, romance, and a web of lies that threatens to destroy three individuals and posits some dangerous choices to Kathleen, who must take either family or the love of her life. With its powerful story and engrossing audio version, The Silken Web draws listeners into a web of intrigue and love, and enjoys the best features of LaVoy's evocative, winning voice. It's audio romance at its best. James Patterson's KISS THE GIRLS (9781619694132, $18.00) receives a fine narration by Michael Kramer, who brings to life the involving saga of the second thriller in the Alex Cross series. Familiarity with the first is highly recommended for a smooth segue to this story, where a reporter investigating a series of murders is killed in Lo Angeles and in a seemingly-unrelated mystery cross-country, a lovely medical intern vanishes. Alex Cross doesn't know if he's investigating one murder or two clever killers following the same modus operandi in this riveting murder mystery/thriller. Marcia Clark's THE COMPETITION (9781478927228, $30.00) pairs January LaVoy's evocative voice, seasoned by nears on stage and TV, with the thriller revolving around a L.A. district attorney Rachel Knight, who investigates a terrible high school massacre that has students murdered and others identified as killers. Two women team up to solve a case that just doesn't make sense in this engrossing thriller. Nicholas Sparks's THE BEST OF ME (9781478900719, $20.00) is set in the spring of 1984, when two high school sweethearts fall in love. In typical Romeo and Juliet style, they come from different sides of the tracks and their love defies their small town roots. Predictably, events will tear them apart. Unpredictably, twenty-five years later, events will bring them back together. Pair an evocative story with Sean Pratt's experienced narrative voice and you have a drama that will be widely appreciated by listeners looking for love stories. James Patterson and Michael White team up for PRIVATE DOWN UNDER (9781619698499, $26.00) which tells of Craig Gisto and a team attending a fancy launch party when a stabbed, gunshot Asian man staggers into the event. It's a terrible murder in a wealthy community; but that's only the tip of the iceberg as non-stop action narrated in Michael White's vivid voice creates an audio that's hard to stop listening to!


The Library CD Shelf

Alex Skolnick's Planetary Coalition
Global Music Project
c/o Rock Paper Scissors (publicity)
511 West 4th Street, Suite 2
Bloomington, IN 47404
$TBA www.rockpaperscissors.biz

Metal and jazz guitar player turned global music networker Alex Skolnick presents Alex Skolnick's Planetary Collection, an incredible, cross-cultural acoustic music CD showcasing the talents of twenty-seven musicians across the breadth of five continents. A truly global fusion, Planetary Coalition carries a strong, positive message of community and kinship through the shared joy of musical harmony. An absolute "must-have" for multicultural music and library CD collections! The tracks are "Island in the Sky" (6:28), "Salto" (5:30), "Passage to Pranayama" (8:16), "Taksim Square" (5:51), "Playa La Ropa" (4:03), "Django Tango" (5:07), "Old World Dance" (6:19), "Alla La K'E" (2:13), "Back to the Land" (6:00), "Mojito" (5:01), "Rock of Ramallah" (4:37), "Negev Desert Sunset" (4:45), "Return of the Yi People" (4:53), and "Sleeping Gypsy" (5:54).

Jazz Carnatica
Arun Ramamurthy Trio
www.arunramamurthy.com
Privately Published
c/o Rock Paper Scissors (publicity)
511 West 4th Street, Suite 2
Bloomington, IN 47404
$TBA www.rockpaperscissors.biz

Jazz Carnatica is a unique fusion of South Indian Classical music and jazz, by the performing trio of Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Sameer Gupta (bass), and Perry Wortman (drums), with guest artists Marc Cary (piano), Trina Basu (violin), and Akshay Anantapadmanabhan (mridangam). Jazz Carnatica transforms millennia-old classical pieces with a fine balance between traditional, rhythmic rigor and artistic creativity, staying true to the enduring spirit of Indian devotional music. The result is a captivating and inspirational listening experience, worthy of the highest recommendation for multicultural music collections. The tracks are "Dhanasri" (5:25), "Maha G" (7:20), "4th Dimension" (8:53), "Simple Joys" (9:06), "Darbari Kanada" (3:40), "Govardhana" (7:56), "Delusions" (8:47), "Conception" (7:07), "Revati" (6:22).

Songs of Time Lost
Piers Faccini & Vincent Segal
Six Degrees Records
www.sixdegreesrecords.com
c/o Press Junkie PR
$12.98 CD / $9.49 MP3 www.amazon.com

Songs of Time Lost is the first joint music album of vocalist/guitarist Piers Faccini and cellist Vincent Segal, who have known one another for twenty-five years. Their collaboration transcends boundaries of musical style, a unique virtuoso fusion to surprise and delight. A musical treasure and an excellent gift for connoisseurs, Songs of Time Lost is highly recommended. The tracks are "Jesce Sole", "The Closing Of Our Eyes", "Cammina Cammina", "Cradle to the Grave", "Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria", "Villanella Di Cenerentola", "A Half of Me", "Mange Pou Le Coeur", "Cicerenella", "Wenn Ich Mir, Was Wunschen Durfte", "Everyday Away From You", "Dicitencello Vuje", and "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor".

Originals
Quinn DeVeaux and the Blue Beat Review
QDV Records
QuinnDeVeaux.com
c/o Press Junkie PR
9901 Brodie Lane, Suite 160, PMB 221
Austin, TX 78748
www.pressjunkiepr.com
$TBA CD / $8.99 MP3 www.amazon.com

Originals is an album of upbeat songs by soul artist Quinn DeVeaux, created for and played by the Blue Beat Review. Individual songs are inspired by Quinn's steadfast friends, thoughts on human mortality, and his wish to create music his beloved grandmother could dance to. Quirky, creative, and performed with superlative fluidity, Originals is a unique treasure worthy of extended appreciation. The tracks are "Lil 45", "Tara Jean", "Pale Angel", "Left This Town", "How Many Teardrops", "Hey Right On", "Lil Papa", "So Easy", "Rain Drops", "Kids on Fire", "Cruel", and "One".

Voices from Heaven
Runar Halonen and Tron Syversen
Privately Published
www.tronmusic.com
c/o The Creative Service Company
4360 Emerald Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80918
$14.95 CD / $8.99 download www.thecreativeservicecompany.com

Norwegian new age keyboardist Tron Syversen and vocalist Runar Halonen present Voices from Heaven, a therapeutic recording with wordless vocals. Voices from Heaven resonates with empathetic, ambient rejuvenation. An album that embraces the healing power of music, Voices from Heaven is blissfully beautiful, encouraging relaxation of the body and mind. Highly recommended, especially for shedding the stress of a long day. The tracks are "Voices in Heaven's Cathedral" (16:13), "Voices for Mother Earth" (18:22), and "Voices of Dreams" (18:32). Listeners yearning for more are also encouraged to investigate "Voices from Heaven Volume 2" ($14.95).

Purple Reggae
Radio Riddler
Mita Records
c/o Press Junkie PR
9901 Brodie Lane, Suite 160, PMB 221
Austin, TX 78748
$TBA www.pressjunkiepr.com

Purple Reggae is the debut album of Radio Riddler, a team name for the duo of Frank Benbini and Fast Leiser. Together, they have created a tribute to all things reggae in general, and the performer Prince in particular. A wide variety of featured performers lend their talents to this expressive, diverse, and adventurous collection, especially recommended for enthusiasts of the genre! The tracks are "Let's Go Crazy (ft. Suggs)", "Take Me With U (ft. Deborah Bonham)", "The Beautiful Ones (ft. Frank Benbini)", "Computer Blue (ft. Naim Cortazzi)", "Darling Nikki (ft. Frank Benbini)", "When Doves Cry (ft. Citizen Cope)", "I Would Die 4 U (ft. Sinead O'Connor)", "Baby I'm A Star (ft. Beverley Knight)", and "Purple Rain (ft. Ali Campbell)".

Na Lojinha De Eu Me Sinto Milionario (At The Dollar Store, I Feel Like A Millionaire)
Paulo Padilha
Boranda Producoes
boranda.com.br
c/o FlipSwitch (publicity)
PO Box 2207, Bloomington, IN 47404-2207
$TBA CD / $8.99 MP3 www.amazon.com

Na Lojinha De Eu Me Sinto Milionario (At The Dollar Store, I Feel Like A Millionaire) is a Portuguese-language music album blending samba and Brazilian pop, with a light splash of other styles such as reggae. The double-guitar and bass form the core, enriched with additional elements and Paulo Padilha's personable vocals. The result is a vibrantly flowing experience, especially recommended for international music collections! The tracks are "Eu e minhas ideias geniais", "Na Lojinha de l real", "Guia Facil para Lidar com Pessoas Dificeis", "Eu sou ela amanha", "Serrei as pernas da mesa", "Escanteio", "Partido baixo", "So me trai - intro", "Summertime", "Pre-pago pai de santo", "Tapa", "Si Mi Re La", "Aio no oio".

putalittlemoreloveintheworld
Bob Sima
Privately Published
c/o Conscious Media Relations (publicity)
$15.00 CD / $10.00 digital www.bobsima.com

An album embodying consciousness and spiritual growth, putalittlemoreloveintheworld lives up to its title with its soulful, inspiring tracks. Bob Sima sings his compositions in perfect attunement to his acoustic guitar, creating a fluid celebration of the love that makes the world go 'round. Wonderfully uplifting, putalittlemoreloveintheworld also makes an excellent gift. The tracks are "I Am", "putalittlemoreloveintheworld", "Breathe", "Book of Love", "I Am Here", "Queen of the Forest", "Grand Design", "Happening For You", "Bit My Tongue", and "Center of You, Center of Me".


The Library DVD Shelf

Growing Cities
First Run Features
630 Ninth Avenue, Suite 1213
New York, NY 10036
$24.95 www.firstrunfeatures.com

Growing Cities is a documentary DVD about urban farmers, activists, and ordinary people working to help America feed itself in an unorthodox manner - by growing food within cities. Some cultivate food in their backyards to stretch their own food budget; others are actively teaching their children to eat healthier, and still others are searching for new ways to practice sustainable agriculture in the twenty-first century. Bonus features include four shorts ("Ultra Fresh Goat's Milk", "Back to the Roots", "Squirrel for Lunch", and "Blooper Reel"). Educational and inspirational, Growing Cities is a choice pick for high school classroom and public library DVD collections. 93 min., with optional English SDH captions and Spanish subtitles. Also highly recommended is award-winning filmmaker Daniel Karslake's "Every Three Seconds" (100 min., $24.95), an eye-opening documentary about five ordinary people who each decided to step up and personally combat the social problems of hunger and extreme poverty, changing the world for the better one person at a time.

The Allergy Fix
A Dreamfilm Documentary
Bullfrog Films, Inc.
PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547
1941545157 $250.00 www.bullfrogfilms.com

Licensed for public performance, The Allergy Fix is a documentary about food allergies. Food allergies are when an individual's immune system regards food proteins as a hostile invader, triggering reactions that can range from uncomfortable to lethal. More than three times as many children have food allergies now, compared to twenty years ago. Despite a wealth of research, the cause of most food allergies is unknown, though evidence exists to support a variety of hypotheses. Traditionally, the only sure way to cope with food allergies is through complete avoidance of the problematic foods, or immediate medical intervention if food allergens are accidentally consumed ("cross-contamination" is a serious threat for those with life-threatening food allergies, who typically cannot risk eating at restaurants). Could there be ways to prevent food allergies from developing, or even cure them? The Allergy Fix examines practices ranging from giving peanuts to babies to the use of parasitic worms, and explores why Amish farm families have so few allergies. Fascinating, educational, and informative, The Allergy Fix is especially recommended for public library DVD collections. 43 min., SDH captions.

Powerpoint Presentation series
Crystal Productions
1812 Johns Drive
Glenview, IL 60025-1581
$14.95 each www.crystalproductions.com

Three inexpensive "Powerpoint Presentation" art DVDs from Crystal Productions are excellent "how-to" instructionals for self-study or classroom instruction; each program is divided into "slides" and can be potentially be presented on a whiteboard, or viewed on students' computers. Gail Price's "Tempera Painting & Techniques" (9781562907893) demonstrates the basics of color mixing and color values when using tempera paint as a medium, as well as how a simple ruler, protractor, or other found objects can create the basic frame for vibrant paintings, from still life to landscapes. Wet-into-wet painting methodology is also covered, as is egg tempera painting. Gail Price's "Drawing with Charcoal & Pastels" (9781562907976) walks viewers through the different types of charcoal and pastels, and reveals how they are used to create artwork ranging from still life to figures, animals, and much more. Arthur Turner's "Color Perceptions" (9781562907990) focuses especially upon color phenomena, including proportion of colors, hue, value, intensity, figure-ground relationships, luminosity, and iridescence. All three are highly recommended especially for school library DVD collections!

Who Shot My Father?
A film by Liora Amir Barmatz
SISU Home Entertainment
340 W 39th St., 6th fl
New York, NY 10018
$24.95 www.sisuent.com

Who Shot My Father? is a documentary about the unsolved murder of Israeli Air Force Attache Colonel Joe Alon, who was killed in Washington DC in the year 1973. His daughters still work to uncover the truth; Who Shot My Father? includes interviews with FBI agents, Mossad chiefs, a former American Air Force Chief Commander, and details about Alon's courageous and dutiful life. Who Shot My Father? is a truly unforgettable real-life mystery. 72 min., Hebrew and English with English subtitles. Also highly recommended is the DVD "Zubin Mehta: Zubin and I" (66 min., English and Hebrew with English subtitles) by Ori Sivan, an extraordinary portrait of the brilliant and talented maestro of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.

A Father's Legacy
Cedar Fort, Inc.
2373 West 700 South
Springville, Utah 84663
$12.99 www.cedarfort.com

A Father's Legacy (24 min. 25 sec.) is a DVD about how fathers can use sports to teach their children not only about games, but about life itself. There is far more to sports than simply winning or a chance at going pro; character-building, self-improvement, and learning to appreciate everyday joys are all things that fathers can teach their children on the playing field. A Father's Legacy is an excellent resource for physical education classrooms or for parents and children to share at home, and includes interviews/footage from renowned athletes and coaches including LaVell Edwards, Kyle Whittingham, Bronco Mendenhall, Haloti Ngata, Brandon Doman, Vai Sikahema, Chad Lewis, Paul Kruger, Jimmer Fedette, and more. Also highly recommended is the DVD "Grit: The True Story of Steve Young" (24 min. 26 sec.), a DVD about multiple MVP award-winning football quarterback Steve Young, and the secrets to greatness that he learned from his beloved father.


The Blu-ray Shelf

Agatha Christie's Poirot, Series 13
Acorn Media
c/o RLJ Entertainment
9781621722182 $5.99 DVD
9781621722199 $59.99 Blu-ray www.acornonline.com

Available in both DVD and 1080p Blu-ray formats, Agatha Christie's Poirot, Series 13 presents the final five feature-length television adaptations featuring Agatha Christie's quirky Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot. Presented in their original UK broadcast television order, the five mysteries are "Elephants Can Remember", "The Big Four", "Dead Man's Folly", "The Labours of Hercules", and "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", based on the story Christie wrote when she feared for her own survival and the subsequent legacy of the Poirot character, during the dark days of World War II. Bonus features include a 19-minute interview with lead actor David Suchet, and a photo gallery. A captivating "must-have" for fans of Christie's classic works, enthusiastically recommended for public library DVD or Blu-ray collections as well! 3 discs, 462 min., SDH subtitles.


The Christian Studies Shelf

The Power of Children
Margaret Y. MacDonald
Baylor University Press
One Bear Place, #97363
Waco, TX 76798-7363
9781481302234 $49.95 www.baylorpress.com

Margaret Y. MacDonald (Dean of Arts, St. Mary's University in Halifax) presents The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the Greco-Roman World, a scholarly analysis of Christian teachings about children, in the historical context of everyday life in the Roman world. Scrutinizing the New Testament's household codes (Colossians 3:18-4:1; Ephesians 5:21-6:9; 1 Timothy 2:8-15, 5:1-2, 6:1-2; Titus 2:1-10), The Power of Children especially focuses upon how they affected children and parenting. MacDonalds puts forth evidence that the social divisions of the era (between wives and husbands, children and parents, or slaves and masters) were more complicated within the context of Christianity. Christian principles curbed sexual abuse, fomented the practice of pseudo-parenting, and encouraged the teaching roles of both men and women in a family context. This Christian perspective, which resisted the old ways with a new viewpoint that placed greater value on children, had lasting repercussions on evolving social mores. Extensive notes and an index round out this thoughtful, well-researched treatise.

Orbis Books
Box 302, Maryknoll NY 10545-0302
www.orbisbooks.com

Terrence J. Rynne's JESUS CHRIST PEACEMAKER (9781626980976, $25.00) considers the nonviolence of Jesus and its teachings to church and world alike, and uses the Gospels to consider the evolving image of Jesus as Peacemaker. More than an assessment of the morals involved, this considers how God calls people to a life of nonviolence and peace, how Jesus symbolized these beliefs and laid the foundation for nonviolent responses to a violent world, and why politics and Christianity meet when discussing Jesus's real purposes. The result is a powerful survey highly recommended for any Christian or social issues collection. Veronica Mary Rolf's JULIAN'S GOSPEL: ILLUMINATING THE LIFE & REVELATIONS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH (9781626980945, $30.00) provides a fine biography reconstructing the life of Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic, and blends history, theology and cultural insights to portray a Julian who spoke not only to peoples of his times, but whose words continue to offer inspirational and religious insight to modern Christians. Collections strong in women's issues and Christian life and history will find this an absorbing study on many levels, combining fascinating early Christian historical insights with a focus on their meaning for modern audiences. The result is a survey highly recommended for any Christian collection strong in scholarly yet accessible writings.


The Judaic Studies Shelf

A Guide to the Complex
Shlomo M. Brody
Maggid Books
c/o Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd.
PO Box 8531, New Milford, CT 06776-8531
9781592643516 $29.95 www.korenpub.com

Even though A Guide to the Complex: Contemporary Halakhic Debates adopts a scholarly tone, with copious notes and references to the philosophy and teachings of individual rabbis, technical terminology is not used in excess, and Hebrew words are almost always defined next to their English equivalents. As a result, this survey of debates on serious issues and ethical dilemmas is thoroughly accessible to readers of all faiths and backgrounds. Author and Rabbi Shlomo M. Brody, well-known for his popular "Ask the Rabbi" column in "The Jerusalem Post", presents a straightforward anthology of interpretations of Jewish law concerning issues ranging from contraception and abortion, to prayers for the terminally ill ("May I pray for the death of a relative who is suffering greatly?"), cruelty to animals ("Is foie gras kosher?"), adopting foreign rituals ("May one place a memorial wreath at a military funeral?"), female rabbinic ordination, Yom Kippur prohibitions ("May one wear Crocs?") and much more. Often, different notable rabbis have held conflicting opinions on such topics throughout history; A Guide to the Complex examines these different points of view and the reasoning behind them, as well as noting those cases when individual consultation and careful consideration of specific circumstances is especially warranted. An absolute "must-have" for any serious-minded Judaic Studies shelf, or for readers who wish to learn more about interpretations of Jewish law.

In the Narrow Places
Erica Brown
Maggid
c/o The Toby Press
PO 8531, New Milford, CT 06776-8531
9781592643400, $22.95, 150pp, www.amazon.com

Synopsis: Dr. Erica Brown is one of the foremost Jewish educators of our time. In her latest book, "In the Narrow Places", she brings her extraordinary teaching skills to the subject of the Three Weeks, the period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples. For each day of the Three Weeks, she presents a short, inspirational essay based on biblical texts followed by a kavana, a spiritual focus that involves reflection, imagination or action to transform these somber days of remembrance into a period of introspection and spiritual growth. Alongside the traditional prophecies of doom and consolation traditionally read during the Three Weeks, "In the Narrow Places" offers a new process for rebuilding and a re-affirmation of hope. As informed and informative as it is inspired and inspiring, "In the Narrow Places" is highly recommended and instructive reading. Enhanced with a 'Glossary of Hebrew and Aramaic Terms', "In the Narrow Places" would make an enduringly valued and appreciated addition to personal and academic Judaic Studies supplemental reading lists.

The Koren Jerusalem Bible
English text revised and edited by Harold Fisch
Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd.
PO Box 8531, New Milford, CT 06776-8531
9789653010550 $49.95 www.korenpub.com

The Koren Jerusalem Bible is a bilingual edition of the sacred text. Each two-page spread has Hebrew on the right, and an English translation by the respected Professor Harold Fisch on the left. This revised edition also includes a transliteration of all names appearing in the Bible, and a cross-reference index of the standard English version of the Biblical names. The Koren Jerusalem Bible is the definitive centerpiece of both private and public library Judaic Studies shelves.


The Cookbook Shelf

Vegan Casseroles
Julie Hasson
Running Press
c/o Perseus Book Group
250 W. 57th St., Suite 1500
New York, NY 10107
9780762448845 $20.00 www.runningpress.com

Illustrated with full-color photography of many of its delicacies, Vegan Casseroles: Pasta Bakes, Gratins, Pot Pies, and More is a treasury of vegan "comfort food" recipes, perfect for family dining or festive entertainment! Animal product-free dishes include Jambalaya, Zucchini Basil Casserole with Buttery Crumb Topping, Blueberry Peach Skillet Pie, Mujadara, and much more. An introduction with recommendations for selecting vegan ingredients rounds out this excellent addition to any and every vegan cookbook collection. "Not all sugars are vegan, as cane sugar is sometimes filtered through bone char (from animals). Beet sugar (granulated white and brown) and organic sugars are processed without the use of bone char."

100 Best Quick Gluten-Free Recipes
Carol Fenster
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003
9780544263710 $16.99 www.hmhpub.com

Illustrated with a handful of color photographs, 100 Best Quick Gluten-Free Recipes lives up to its title as a no-nonsense compendium of easy-to-prepare, gluten-free dishes. 100 Best Quick Gluten-Free Recipes is a must-have for those with gluten intolerance (who are advised to prepare their own food to avoid endemic cross-contamination in restaurants and packaged food products), but one doesn't have to be gluten-intolerant to appreciate mouth-water dishes such as Cranberry-Orange Scones with Orange Glaze; Hazelnut-Quinoa Salad; Swiss Steak; Shrimp, Sausage, and Pineapple Skewers; No-Cook Chocolate Cheesecake and much more. An extensive introduction to gluten-free cooking, including recommendations for gluten-free and dairy-free ingredients, rounds out this excellent, user-friendly cookbook.

Cooking with Ancient Grains
Maria Baez Kijac
Adams Media Corporation
57 Littlefield Street, 2nd floor, Avon, MA 02322
9781440579561 $19.99 www.adamsmedia.com

Illustrated with full-color photography of many of its sumptuous dishes, Cooking with Ancient Grains: 75 Delicious Recipes for Quinoa, Amaranth, Chia, and Kaniwa lives up to its title as a compendium of user-friendly recipes for these four gluten-free grains. From Janina's Papaya Shake with Chia to Seven-Vegetable Salad with Quinoa and Kaniwa, Argula and Radicchio Salad with Goat Cheese, Red Quinoa Risotta with Porcini Mushrooms, Chocolate Triangles with Quinoa Flour, and more, Cooking with Ancient Grains is a treasury of unusual, flavorful, and healthy delights!

Mexican Flavors
Hugh Carpenter & Teri Sandison
Andrews McMeel Publishing
1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO 64106-2109
www.andrewsmcmeel.com
9781449453664, $35.00, www.amazon.com

Compiled by the Mexican culinary experts Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison, "Mexican Flavors: Contemporary Recipes from Camp San Miguel" is a wonderfully illustrated, 224 page compendium of recipes and commentary carefully organized and presented in eleven chapters beginning with 'Flavor Building Blocks' and 'Core Recipes', and ending with 'Desserts to Win Friends' and 'Drinks to Refresh and Elevate the Spirit'. Replete with kitchen cook friendly recipes ranging from a Tangerine-Serrano Salsa and a Watermelon Relish, to Mushroom Enchiladas with Salsa Mexicana and Cream; Coconut-Ancho Soup with Mushrooms; Lobster with Mexican Accents; Mexican Chili with Lamb and Black Beans; and Garlic Bread Scented with Cumin. Of special value for American kitchens is the inclusion of the section 'Metric Conversions and Equivalents'. "Mexican Flavors: Contemporary Recipes from Camp San Miguel" is an enthusiastically commended addition to personal, professional, family, and community library Ethnic Cookbook collections.

Indian For Everyone
Anupy Singla
Surry Books
c/o Agate Publishing
1328 Greenleaf Street, Evanston, IL 60202
www.agatepublishing.com
9781572841628, $35.00, www.amazon.com

Compiled by Indian cuisine expert Anupy Singla, "Indian for Everyone: The Home Cook's Guide to Traditional Favorites" is a beautifully illustrated, 288 page compendium comprised of thoroughly 'kitchen cook friendly' recipes organized and presented in sections devoted to Street Foods as Snacks; Vegetable Stir Fries; Lentil and Bean Soups, Vegetable Curries; Poultry, Mead, and Seafood; Breads; and Desserts. Of special note is the basic information for beginners on 'Getting Started' -- covering basic tools of the trade, Indian spices and herbs, the Fridge and the Pantry. Enhanced with an opening chapter on 'The Basics' (spice blends, chutneys, shortcuts, and beverages), "Indian for Everyone: The Home Cook's Guide to Traditional Favorites" is a complete and invaluable addition to personal, professional, family, and community library Ethnic Cookbook collections! It should be noted that "Indian for Everyone: The Home Cook's Guide to Traditional Favorites" is also available in a Kindle edition ($16.99).

Sweet Treats for the Holidays
Norene Cox
Front Table Books
c/o Cedar Fort, Inc.
2373 West 700 South, Springville, Utah 84663
9781462114184 $18.99 www.cedarfort.com

Illustrated with full-color photography of every goodie, Sweet Treats for the Holidays lives up to its title with a plethora of edible holiday-themed desserts, made from simple store-bought candy, cookies, frosting, etc. No baking is required to create these charming, delightful, and artistic recipes such as Graveyard Pudding Cups (for Halloween), Dreidel Meringue Pops (for Hanukkah), North Pole Ice Cream Sammies (for Christmas), Muhindi Waffles (for any time of year), and much more. Many of the brightly colored morsels will appeal to young people, making Sweet Treats for the Holidays an excellent choice for a holiday or rainy-day cooking project that parents and children can engage in together. Highly recommended!

Best of Bridge Holiday Classics
The Editors of Best of Bridge
Robert Rose Inc.
120 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 800
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4P 1E2
www.robertrose.ca
9780778804871, $29.95, www.amazon.com

"Best of Bridge Holiday Classics: 225 Recipes for Special Occasions" is a nicely illustrated, 306 page compendium comprised of thoroughly 'kitchen cook friendly' recipes for dishes that will please any palate, satisfy any appetite, and be appropriate for any and all dining occasions including parties, brunches, buffets, formal holiday dinners, and even food gifts for the holiday season. Of special note is the chapter of recipes for those inevitable Leftovers! From a Shrimp and Crab Quiche; a Sun Dried Tomato Dip; a Frosted Waldorf Salad; and Seafood Scallop Shells; to English Spiced Beef; Garlic and Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb; Wild Rice and Artichoke Hearts; and Chocolate-Mocha Cheesecake, here are dishes as elegant as they are nutritious. Spiral bound so it will lay out flat on a kitchen table or counter, "Best of Bridge Holiday Classics: 225 Recipes for Special Occasions" is very highly recommended for personal, family, and community library Cookbook collections.

365 Vegan Smoothies
Kathy Patalsky
Avery Books
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.us.penguingroup.com
Trina Kaye Organization
9781583335178, $20.00, www.amazon.com

A smoothie (the name comes from the smooth property of the emulsion) is a blended and sometimes sweetened beverage made from fresh fruit (fruit smoothie), vegetables and in special cases can contain chocolate or peanut butter. In addition to fruit, many smoothies include crushed ice, frozen fruit, honey or contain syrup and ice ingredients. They have a milkshake-like consistency that is thicker than slush drinks. They can also contain milk, yogurt or ice cream. Smoothies are often marketed to health conscious people, and some restaurants offer add-ins such as soy milk, whey powder, green tea, herbal supplements, or nutritional supplement mixes. Expertly compiled by vegan authority Kathy Patalsky, "365 Vegan Smoothies: Boost Your Health With a Rainbow of Fruits and Veggies" is a 336 page compendium comprised of one superb and thoroughly 'kitchen cook friendly' recipes after another -- enough for every day of the year before repeating! These are smoothies that anyone -- vegan or non-vegan -- will enjoy anytime and every time of the year. Very highly recommended for personal, family, and community library cookbook collections, it should be noted that "365 Vegan Smoothies: Boost Your Health With a Rainbow of Fruits and Veggies" is also available in a Kindle edition ($13.00).

The Pollen Family Table
Corky, Lori, Dana, and Tracy Pollan
Scribner
c/o Simon and Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas, 14th fl., NY, NY 10020
www.simonsays.com
9781476746371, $30.00, www.amazon.com

The collaborative effort of the female members of the Pollan family, "The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals" is a colorfully illustrated, 352 page compendium showcasing an amazing diversity of kitchen cook friendly recipes that will please any palate and satisfy any appetite. Ideal for the novice family cook, "The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals" starts off with invaluable basic information on key ingredients for a well stocked pantry of cabinet, essential cooking tools, explanations of basic cooking terms, and useful commentary on cooking techniques, tricks, and short cut. The recipes that follow range from a Hunter's Chicken Stew with Tomatoes and Mushrooms; a Bistro Burger with Caramelized Onions; Panfried Tofu with Chimichurri Sauce; and Cheese Tortellini with Butternut Hash and Toasted Hazelnuts; to Jalapeno, Pork, and Hominy Chili; Mediterranean Salad with Seared Tuna; Roasted Balsamic Haricots Verts with Slivered Almonds; and a Raspberry Pudding Cake. Encyclopedic in scope, "The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals" will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to personal, family, and community library cookbook collections.

Mexican Flavors
Hugh Carpenter & Teri Sandison
Andrews McMeel Publishing
1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO 64106-2109
9781449453664, $35.00, www.amuniversal.com

MEXICAN FLAVORS: CONTEMPORARY RECIPES FROM CAMP SAN MIGUEL provides an inspirational survey from Hugh Carpenter's cooking school located in an artistic mountain community north of Mexico City, and includes recipes form an American's perspective for Americans who would re-create them at home. Ingredients are thus readily available at any supermarket and feature innovations on classic Mexican cuisine, form a Banana Salsa with Four Variations to Mexican Seafood Risotto and a Kahlua Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Coulis. Pack these innovations with mouth-watering images and you have a fine guide for any interested in innovative Mexican fare.

Provence Food and Wine
Francois Millo and Viktorija Todorovska
Agate
1328 Greenleaf Street, Evanston, IL 60202
9781572841518, $19.95, www.agatepublishing.com

Provence Food and Wine: The Art of Living packs in nearly fifty recipes to accompany photos of the French Provencal countryside, discussing its wines and regional dishes and serving as an introduction to the region's culinary history and traditions. Consider this a mouth-watering pairing of images, cookbook, and wine consideration that offers travelers many resources for visiting and discussions (accompanied by recipes) exploring Provence's cuisine. With its wide-ranging investigations and applications, this is a fine guide for either foodies traveling to France or at-home cooks just beginning to look at Provence dishes.

The Ginger & White Cookbook
Tonia George, Emma Scott, & Nicholas Scott
Mitchell Beazley
c/o Octopus Publishing
236 Park Avenue, New York NY 10017
9781845339012, $24.99, www.octopusbooksusa.com

The Ginger & White Cookbook is a fine guide for any interested in good cooking, and presents nearly a hundred recipes from its restaurant in its first cookbook pairing baked goods with main courses. From a Coronation Chicken Sandwich originally created in Britain for Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953 and consisting of shred chicken, apricot and ginger chutney, and yogurt to an unusual Cauliflower Soup with Blue Cheese and Chutney, this is packed with unusual flavors and pairings that work well together, and is a recommendation for any cookbook collection.


The Wine Shelf

Timeless Bounty
Thomas Pellechia
Burford Books, Inc.
101 East State Street, #301, Ithaca, NY 14850
9781580801751 $18.95 www.burfordbooks.com

Illustrated with beautiful color photography, Timeless Bounty: Food and Wine in New York's Finger Lakes is a tribute to the culinary and wine traditions of the Finger Lakes region of New York, which are directly connected to the region's agricultural bounty. From the story of Reverend William Bostwick, who planted the first grape crop in Hammondsport in 1829, to Dr. Konstantin Frank, who successfully grew vinifera grapes in the region, to modern-day produce growers and winemakers, Timeless Bounty is as much a historical chronicle as it is a celebration. The "locavore" movement (emphasizing locally grown food) is also covered, and a handful of recipes from area restaurateurs rounds out this gourmet and wine connoisseur's treasure.


The American History Shelf

Women and the Texas Revolution
Mary L. Scheer, editor
University of North Texas Press
PO Box 311336, Denton, TX 76203-1336
9781574415773 $16.95 www.unt.edu/untpress

Women and the Texas Revolution is an anthology of scholarly essays by historians and researchers, examining the roles that women played during the Texas Revolution (also known as the Texas War of Independence), in which Texas broke away from Mexico's colonial authority and became its own republic. Writings include "Continuity, Change, and Removal: Native Women and the Texas Revolution", "Traveling the Wrong Way Down Freedom's Trail: Black Women and the Texas Revolution", "Two Silver Pesos and a Blanket: The Texas Revolution and the Non-Combatant Women Who Survived the Battle of the Alamo", and much more. An index rounds out this erudite and insightful contribution to American History shelves, highly recommended for public and college library collections.

Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip
Eugene P. Moehring
University of Nevada Press
Mail Stop 0166, Reno, NV, 89557-0166
9780874179552 $34.95 www.unpress.nevada.edu

Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip: A Tale of Three Cities is a historical study of the Nevada cities of Reno and Las Vegas since 1945, focusing on the years after 1970. The growth of corporate gaming, tourist resorts that blossomed into mega-extravaganzas, and a culture that shifted to allow for increased personal leisure and a stable middle class all shaped the cities' economic development. Urban development issues, rather than social history, is the primary scrutiny of this erudite, well-reasoned, and meticulous history. "Aside from reigniting the periodic debate about the virtues of higher education and economic diversification, the Great Recession [of 2009], more than any previous economic slowdown, affected every gaming property and building project in the Las Vegas metropolitan area." Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip is an excellent contribution to American History shelves with a focus on urban studies.

Beyond the Burning Bus
Phil Noble
NewSouth, Inc.
PO Box 1588, Montgomery, AL 36102
9781603060103 $19.95 www.newsouthbooks.com

Thoroughly accessible to readers of all backgrounds, Beyond the Burning Bus: The Civil Rights Revolution in a Southern Town is the true story of Anniston, Alabama, a small industrial city nestled between Birmingham and Atlanta. In 1961, the specter of racial violence threatened the peaceful town, when the Ku Klux Klan firebombed a Freedom Riders bus. A handful of civic leaders, both black and white, realized that the tide of history was turning, and worked together to unite the community. They created a Human Relations Council to end Jim Crow segregation laws and customs. Because of their work, the toll of racial violence and misery was much lower in Anniston than in many other cities during the 1960's. Author Phil Noble, who was a Presbyterian Minister in Anniston and participated in the Council, offers his testimony of that pivotal area. Backed with research yet told from a personal perspective, Beyond the Burning Bus is a welcome addition to American History with a focus on the civil rights era, and highly recommended.

County Capitols
Arthur L. Rusch, author
With an essay by Jason Haug
South Dakota State Historical Society Press
900 Governors Drive, Pierre, SC 57501-2217
9780985290504 $29.95 www.sdshspress.com

Illustrated with black-and-white photography of historic courthouses throughout, County Capitols: The Courthouses of South Dakota is as much about the history of these storied edifices as their architecture. During the pioneer era, South Dakota communities competed fiercely for designation as a county seat (and access to railroad lines); such a distinction improved the odds that a town would flourish, and raised local land values. Land speculators especially had a vested interest in ensuring a courthouse would be established near their own property. This conflict of interest led to "courthouse fights" between rival communities, ranging from bidding wars to midnight excursions to steal county records, or even the destruction of nascent courthouses! County Capitols devotes two or more pages to each of dozens of courthouses, recounting the often colorful tales behind their creation and use, and makes an excellent addition to South Dakota state history shelves.


The World History Shelf

The Patriotic Consensus
Jody Perrun
University of Manitoba Press
301 St. John's College
Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3T 2M5
9780887557491 $31.95 www.uofmpress.ca

When World War II raged, Winnipeg was Canada's fourth-largest city, and far from united; it had strong class divisions and a history of political protest. The war had a profound effect upon the entire city - nearly one in ten Canadians served in uniform, and others supported the war effort through initiatives such as the Victory Loan campaigns or calls for voluntary community service. The Patriotic Consensus: Unity, Morale, and the Second World War in Winnipeg examines the Canadian home front and the cultural tug-of-war between the unifying effect of shared sacrifice and the divisiveness of deep-seated ideological divides. Author and history teacher Jody Perrun puts forth a persuasive argument that wartime societal cohesion was especially strengthened by two factors - the burden of shared sacrifice, and both official and unofficial information management. A bibliography and an index round out this thoughtful, heavily researched and lucidly presented historical scrutiny.

Pepper, Silk & Ivory
Marvin Tokayer and Ellen Rodman, PhD
Gefen Publishing House
86 Cedarhurst Ave, Suite 134, Cedarhurst, NY, 11516
Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, Inc. (publicity)
9789652296474 $24.95 www.gefenspublishing.com

Rabbi Marvin Tokayer and television producer Ellen Rodman, PhD present Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East, a historical examination of an oft-overlooked chapter in Jewish history - interactions between Jewish people and the Far East. Amazing stories about unconventional Jewish individuals and institutions who influenced eastern history include those of "Two-Gun Cohen" (the "Uncrowned Jewish King of China" who served as a general in the Chinese Army), Beate Sirota Gordon (who refused to leave the room or relent until the Japanese Constitution included rights for women and children), a synagogue in Burma that had 126 Torahs, and much more. The anecdotal, storytelling style makes Pepper, Silk & Ivory a thoroughly accessible browse for readers of all backgrounds. A handful of black-and-white photographs and an index round out this fascinating and welcome addition to Judaic Studies and World History shelves.


The Civil War Shelf

The Early Morning of War
Edward G. Longacre
University of Oklahoma Press
2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069
9780806144986 $29.95 www.oupress.com

The Early Morning of War: Bull Run, 1861 is an in-depth historical analysis of the first major military campaign of the American Civil War. Federals presumed the battle would be quick and decisive, but when the Confederates retaliated with a powerful counterattack, both sides soon realized that the Civil War would be longer, deadlier, and costlier than any of them imagined. First Bull Run (also known as First Manassas) was a turning point in tactics, weaponry, and the American way of war, with reverberations that would continue to the turn of the twentieth century. Notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index round out this heavily researched and meticulously presented contribution to Civil War shelves, especially the collections of academic libraries.

Civil War Chicago
Theodore J. Karamanski and Eileen M. McMahon, editors
Ohio University Press
215 Columbus Road, Suite 101
Athens, OH 45701
9780821420843 $29.95 www.ohioswallow.com

Also available as an ebook, Civil War Chicago: Eyewitness to History assembles little-known literature written by those who observed the American Civil War and its effects on the city of Chicago, Illinois firsthand. Skillfully edited by two expert history professors, Civil War Chicago gathers primary sources ranging from court cases to sanitary condition reports, accounts of rioting, and even the drive to continue sporting events amid the ominous shadow of war. Even though Chicago largely supported the Union war effort, emancipation, and strict treatment of the South's civilians, Civil War Chicago vividly portrays the city's divisions and conflicts - between Lincoln supporters and Copperheads (Northern Democrats who opposed the war and advocated a peace settlement with the Confederacy), between whites and blacks, between workers and managers, between natives and new arrivals. An excellent addition to public and college library Civil War shelves.


The Metaphysical Studies Shelf

Celtic Tree Magic
Danu Forest
Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
2143 Wooddale Drive
Woodbury, MN 55125
9780738741017 $17.99 www.llewellyn.com

Practicing Druid witch and Celtic shaman Danu Forest presents Celtic Tree Magic: Ogham Lore and Druid Mysteries, a guide to the ogham tradition of Celtic spiritual practice. Chapters instruct the reader how to make salves, tinctures, ointments, and green crafts; perform ogham divinations, charms and spells; the healing attributes and magical correspondences of ogham's twenty-five trees; create wands and other magical tools; and much more. "Divination is the act of accessing spirit or divine wisdom for application and guidance in the everyday world... However, the power to change and act in relation to fate and circumstances is always in the hands of the seeker. No divination technique ever presents the future as if it is carved ins tone. As such, it is a tool for advice that suggests layers of meaning." An index rounds out this thoughtful, user-friendly resource, especially recommended for those with an interest in botanical lore and ancient spiritual traditions.

Timothy Leary: The Harvard Years
James Penner, Editor
Bear Company
c/o Inner Traditions International, Ltd.
One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767
9781620552353, $19.95, www.innertraditions.com

Timothy Leary: The Harvard Years offers a new collection of Leary's research from 1960 to 1965; a period of time when LSD could be legally researched. It collects rare articles form Leary's days as a Harvard professor of psychology, includes writings from the Harvard psilocybin Project and other experiments, and represent the heyday of early psychedelic researchers and their approaches to the spiritual, religious and therapeutic applications of LSD. The result is a fine collection that publishes not only his works of the times, but a selection of controversial articles published after his dismissal from Harvard, making for a powerful gathering of influential pieces recommended for any studying Leary's works.

Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125
www.llewellyn.com

Bridget Benson's WE WALK BESIDE YOU ALWAYS: COMFORTING MESSAGES FROM YOUR LOVED ONES IN THE AFTERLIFE (9780738737492, $14.99) comes from an Irish medium who here shares true stories of the afterlife and spirit connections, and use her own experiences and those of her clients to consider a wide range of afterlife possibilities, from those of children and animals to experiences of those who have taken their own lives. With its haunting discussions of connections after death, this is a survey new age readers will find specific and thought-provoking. Alexandra Chauran's CLAIRVOYANCE FOR BEGINNERS: EASY TECHNIQUES TO ENHANCE YOUR PSYCHIC VISION (9780738739151, $13.99) covers the steps needed to move from clairvoyant beginner to expert, and provides an instructional that shows how to get started and how to enhance clairvoyance with eyes open or closed. From meditation and conscious dreaming to psychometry, omens, visions and more, this includes symbol dictionary and discussion of the ethics involved in clairvoyance even as it reviews the basics for developing one's talents.


The Religion/Spirituality Shelf

Practical Interfaith
Rev. Steven Greenebaum
Skylight Paths Publishing
Sunset Farms Offices, Route 4
PO Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091
9781594735691 $16.99 www.skylightpaths.com

Practical Interfaith: How to Find Our Common Humanity as We Celebrate Diversity presents the Interfaith movement as a path to religious and spiritual fulfillment. A central tenet of the non-denominational Interfaith movement is that there is more than one way to connect with God. Author Rev. Steven Greenebaum gives testimony drawn from personal life experience, both his own and those of the members of the community he founded, the Living Interfaith Church. Chapters address why being part of the Interfaith movement does not need conflict with the practice of own spiritual tradition, how to set the bedrock foundation of an Interfaith community and choose the right minister, the theology of the Interfaith movement, and more. "There appears to be a rather strange disease rampant these days. The disease manifests itself in the belief that anyone who disagrees with us is challenging our personhood. This disease, a pandemic in our politics as well as along our spiritual pathways, contributes mightily to making listening to another person's point of view all but impossible. If I accept the notion that any movement from my core beliefs dehumanizes me, then I can't afford to give an inch." An excellent, thoughtful, and deeply respectful resource.


The Memoir Shelf

My Wild Life
Ronald H. Wauer
Texas Tech University Press
PO Box 41037
Lubbock, TX 79409-1037
9780896728851 $39.95 www.ttupress.org

My Wild Life: A Memoir of Adventures within America's National Parks is the true-life testimony of author Ronald H. Wauer, who worked in America's national parks as a seasonal ranger for thirty-two years until his retirement in 1989. Black-and-white photography of these magnificent parks and their wildlife intersperses Wauer's tales of research projects, flying squirrels and gray owls at Crater Lake; prairie falcons and sidewinders at Death Valley; mountain lions and cave swallows at Big Bend, and much more. A treasury of unforgettable stories that nature lovers everywhere are sure to enjoy, My Wild Life is highly recommended.


The Photography Shelf

Unseen London
Mark Daly, text
Peter Dazeley, photography
Frances Lincoln Publishers
74-77 White Lion Street
Islington, London, N1 9PF
9780711235519 $50.00 www.franceslincoln.com

Unseen London is a striking coffee-table book filled with gorgeous, full-color photography of the interiors of some of London's most historic, iconic, and beloved buildings, including Tower Bridge, Battersea Power Station, Big Ben, Old Bailey, and much more. Mark Daly's learned commentary enlightens readers about the history, purpose, and evolution of these edifices, many of which are still in use today. A feast for the eyes of casual browsers are studious historians alike, Unseen London is an unforgettable image treasury, highly recommended.

Thames & Hudson
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com

William A. Ewing's LANDMARK: THE FIELDS OF LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPH (9780500544334, $65.00) packs in images by a host of modern landscape photographers to illustrate the expanding field of environmental landscape art. Photographer and curator Ewing has here selected some 240 photos by over 100 photographers which represent an original viewpoint about the environment. Ten themes lend to a coverage of different aspects of nature and landscapes, with artistic and socially conscious photographic representations providing a satisfying blend of art and environmental consciousness. The result is a powerful collection of diverse approaches to landscape photography, highly recommended for photography and arts holdings alike! Kristen Lubben edits MAGNUM CONTACT SHEETS (9780500544310, $75.00), a weighty title that is being published in compact form. Lest one question the meaning of 'compact', it should be noted that the original 2011 edition was 11 1/2" x 13 2/3", while this compact edition is 9 3/4" x 11 3/4". The focus is on how Magnum photographers capture and edit their shots, with discussions supplemented by some 139 contact sheets representing the work of nearly seventy photographers. From press cards and notebooks to publications, these images are accompanied by texts by the photographers or their expert representatives, and represent some of the best images and works of modern times.

Amherst Media
175 Rano Street, Suite 200
Buffalo, NY 14207-2176
www.amherstmedia.com

Kay W. Eskridge's SULTRY, SWEET, OR SASSY: LIGHTING AND POSING FOR BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY (9781608957217, $27.95) shows how to celebrate sensuality and how to capture it on film, and covers both studio posing and work in a client's home. From assessing a client's figure and how it can create thrilling results to using better lighting and understanding the basics of style, this covers everything from silhouettes to wraparound lighting and gives all the basics of arranging a studio shot for maximum exposure. Glenn Rand's and Tim Meyer's SHAPING LIGHT: USE LIGHT MODIFIERS TO CREATE PROFESSIONAL STUDIO AND LOCATION PHOTOGRAPHS (9781608957057, $27.95) deserves ongoing recommendation as a fine blend of light physics and photographic application, and teaches all the basics of tools and techniques photographers can use to shape light and create exceptional results. From light ratios and refinement tools to working with softboxes, umbrellas, and under different lighting conditions, this is a fine basic coverage. Billy Pegram's LIGHT A MODEL: STUDIO AND LOCATION LIGHTING FOR FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY (9781608957095, $27.95) comes from a veteran fashion shooter who reveals many of his tips and techniques for fashion shoots. From modifying light and using its qualities for added results to blending lighting with a commercial or artistic purpose in mind, this provides an excellent survey for any would-be fashion modeler.


The Self-Help Shelf

Total Leadership
Stewart D. Friedman
Harvard Business Review Press
60 Harvard Way
Boston, MA 02163
http://hbr.org/books
9781625274380 $22.00 totalleadership.org

Now with a new preface by executive, award-winning educator, and author Stewart D. Friedman, Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life is a guide to improving one's leadership skills, both in business and to improve the quality of one's personal life. The central principles are to act with authenticity, adhere to integrity, and be creative. "Even in the most intimate relationships - perhaps especially in them - it's critical for you to keep channels of communication open to remain aware of expectations and how they change as life evolves. No matter how well you think you know a person, you never fully know about his or her expectations until you ask." The accessible text includes exercises that the reader can engage in to cultivate his or her confidence, eloquence, and imagination. An excellent career and self-help resource!


The Theatre/Cinema Shelf

Pumpkin Cinema
Nathaniel Tolle
Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
4880 Lower Valley Road
Atglen, PA 19310
9780764347238 $24.99 www.schifferbooks.com

Illustrated with black-and-white or color photography of many different movie posters/press kit images/film scenes, Pumpkin Cinema: The Best Movies for Halloween is a recommended compendium of 100 of the best movies for Halloween viewing, from silent era classics to foreign films to comedy, animation, science fiction and more (though a great many of the showcased cinematics are some form of horror). Some are popular blockbusters; others are little-known, but all are choice picks for getting into the Halloween mood - or for thrills and chills at any time of the year! Movies are listed in alphabetical order by title, each with a brief synopsis and a few paragraphs of more extensive description (avoiding an excess of spoilers, naturally). Shorter summaries of Halloween-themed television episodes round out this holiday horror connoisseur's treasury!


The Fiction Shelf

Sweetwater Blues
Raymond L. Atkins
Mercer University Press
1400 Coleman Avenue
Macon, GA 31207-0001
9780881465075 $18.00 www.mupress.org

Sweetwater Blues is an original novel about survivor's guilt and the search for redemption. Rodney Earwood and Palmer Cray grew up together in the hills of northern Georgia. They were best friends, all but brothers, until shortly after their graduation from Sweetwater High. A deadly driving accident claimed Rodney's life, leaving Palmer to struggle with the legal, moral, and personal ramifications of his greatest failure. His efforts to find meaning in life after tragedy leads him to encounter other individuals on the fringes of society - a meth dealer named Cheddar, a junkyard owner named Ottis Lee, a coffee-can addict named Bay-Annette, and Rodney's own mother, now afflicted with Alzheimer's. Heart-touching and soulful, Sweetwater Blues is a story of the human quest for hope, highly recommended.

False Cargo
L. Ron Hubbard
Galaxy Press
7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200
Hollywood, CA 90028
www.goldenagestories.com
9781592122677 $9.95 www.galaxypress.com

Part of the "Stories of the Golden Age" series from Galaxy Press, False Cargo is an novel reprinting one of L. Ron Hubbard's classic tales from the golden era of pulp fiction, along with a bonus short story "Grounded". Hired by Lloyd's insurance company to oversee the voyage of the vessel "Barclay" from Hawaii to San Diego, Skipper Brent Calloway becomes entangled in an illegal operation to sink the ship and collect insurance money! Can he survive the machinations of the remorseless murderer Spike O'Brien and protect the ship's vulnerable passengers, one of whom is the beautiful sister of Brent's close friend? False Cargo is a suspenseful, action-packed high-seas adventure!


The Sports Shelf

The Paul Hornung Scrapbook
Paul Hornung and Chuck Carlson
Triumph Books
triumphbooks.com
c/o Independent Publishers Group
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
9781600789939 $30.00 www.ipgbook.com

Illustrated with color photography of Hornung himself as well as a vast private collection of memorabilia, The Paul Hornung Scrapbook is an autobiographical portrait of one of the most talented football players of the 20th century, Hall of Fame running back Paul Hornung (b. 1935). Hornung played his entire career for the Green Bay Packers, winning four NFL titles and the first Super Bowl. A candid, fascinating true-life testimony, the Paul Hornung Scrapbook is a special treasure for Packers fans.

Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.
PO Box 5076, Champaign, IL 61820-5076
www.humankinetics.com

Reed Ferber & Shari Macdonald's RUNNING MECHANICS AND GAIT ANALYSIS (9781450424394, $45.00) is dedicated to injury prevention and covers almost three hundred peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and clinical research related to gait and injury in athletes. College-level readers interested in athletic biomechanics and assessing and preventing common injuries will find this detailed analysis of running biomechanics directed to professionals working with overuse injuries. A video library features some 33 clips and is available for additional reference, while real-world clinical examples help health professionals and coaches alike apply the latest information to their own work with runners. Charles M. Tipton edits HISTORY OF EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY (9780736083690, $119.00), a reference for exercise physiology researchers and practitioners that compiles a comprehensive text gathering primary ideas and work done in exercise physiology for hundreds of years. It integrates ideas of biological and physiology research with the overall goals and objectives of exercise, focuses on significant contributions, and pairs illustrations and photos with discussions that offer visual and written approaches to the field. It packs in tables, charts, bibliographic references, and plenty of detail and it's filled with important insights for any who want to better understand the technical relationship between exercise and the body's functioning, making it a pick for sports and health collections alike.


The Language Studies Shelf

Signs and Wonders
Tracy Ann Morse
Gallaudet University Press
800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002-3695
9781563686016, $45.00, www.gupress.gallaudet.edu

Signs and Wonders: Religious Rhetoric and the Preservation of Sign Language is recommended for any collection strong in Deaf community issues, and focuses on the role of religion in the development and history of the American Deaf community. It's a semi-scholarly treatment that traces the frequent use of religious rhetoric by Deaf members to support sign language, and it analyzes Gallaudet's use of religious references in his speeches and presentations, considers different religious perspectives of the manualist and oralist trains of thought surrounding sign language, and examines this rhetoric in churches and other places deaf people congregate. The result is an intriguing survey packed with insights on sign language's underlying influences, especially recommended for college-level readers.


The Autism Shelf

The Wonderful World of Work
Jeannette Purkis
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
400 Market Street, Suite 400, Philadelphia, PA 19106
9781849059190, $29.95, www.jkp.com

The Wonderful World of Work: A Workbook for Aperteens is recommended here for its step-by-step examination of different aspects of employment which begin at Step One: why would you even want a job? Each chapter considers a different aspect of employment that covers all the basis, from what to put on a resume when you have no work experience to how to handle job interviews. It's reviewed here so that parents and educators don't miss the invaluable opportunity to use this guidebook as a starting point for helping Asperger teens enter the workplace: it's a treasure trove linking Asperger syndrome habits and concerns with the wider requirements of daily living.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Inc.
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106
www.jkp.com

Brenda Dater's PARENTING WITHOUT PANIC: A POCKET SUPPORT GROUP FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN AND TEENS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM (ASPERGER'S SYNDROME) (9781849059411, $19.95) provides parents with exercises and advice that address top concerns over Asperger's, and is based on her experience as a support group leader and parent of a child on the spectrum. It covers everything for what to do immediately following diagnosis to behaviors, holidays and friendships, homework, and how parents can raise a healthy Asperger's child while looking after their own mental health needs. The result is a solid survey filled with supportive information paired with recommendations parents can easily follow. Bill Nason's THE AUTISM DISCUSSION PAGE: ON THE CORE CHALLENGES OF AUTISM (9781849059947, $24.95) provides a fine survey of the overall core challenges associated with autism, and synthesizes information into a series of approaches for supporting children with these conditions. It's based on posts from an online community page, is arranged by subject for quick reference, and provides a basic survey of common coping methods and autism experiences in the world. Bill Nason's THE AUTISM DISCUSSION PAGE: ON ANXIETY, BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL, AND PARENTING STRATEGIES: A TOOLBOX FOR HELPING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM FEEL SAFE, ACCEPTED, AND COMPETENT (97817849059954, $24.95) provides a fine survey of some key areas of stress in handling and raising autistic children, and is directed to parents who want to hone techniques that help their children feel safe and accepted. Teaching and mentoring techniques for such children offer daily living strategies that work, based on posts from the online community page and arranged by subject for easy reference. From promoting independence and understanding the links between emotion and learning to addressing self-injurious behaviors and destructive patterns, this provides parents with a wealth of ideas for improving an autistic children's life and approach to it.


The Education Shelf

Tools for Teaching Writing
David Campos and Kathleen Fad
ASCD
1703 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311-1714
9781416619048 $39.95 www.ascd.org

Tools for Teaching Writing: Strategies and Interventions for Diverse Learners in Grades 3-8 is a guide for classroom educators that recognizes both the ongoing student literacy crisis, and the challenges of strictly limited teaching time. Chapters are packed with thirty step-by-step writing reproducible worksheets and graphic organizers, strategies that can be adjusted to the needs of struggling readers or those learning English as a second language, progress monitoring forms, parent resources, and much more. Emphasis is placed upon eight core assets to writing well: focus, coherence, organization, development of ideas, voice, word choice, conventions, and presentation. Tools for Teaching Writing is a superb supplementary resource, highly recommended for elementary, middle grade, and junior high educators everywhere.

Meeting Wise
Kathryn Parker Boudett and Elizabeth A. City
Harvard Education Press
8 Story Street, 1st floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
9781612506944 $26.95 www.harvardeducationpress.org

Kathryn Parker Boudett (director of the Data Wise Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Elizabeth A. City (executive director of the Doctor of Education Leadership Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education) present Meeting Wise: Making the Most of Collaborative Time for Educators, a resource that focuses upon how skillful and efficient meeting planning in schools (from elementary schools to colleges) can become a fundamental building block for overall educational improvement. Chapters address how a "Meeting Wise Checklist" can streamline business without accidentally overlooking crucial needs, foundational and recurring setup tasks (such as setting group norms), strategies for participation including conflict management, and much more. "When you have the most significant personal authority in the room (for example, you're the principal in a room full of teachers [...]), your role as a [meeting] participant can be tricky. The key is being aware of the fact that what you do or say has the power to sway the direction of the meeting and potentially undermine the facilitator's ability to do his or her job... First, choose carefully where you sit. Try not to sit at the head of the table, which would reinforce your authority. Also, avoid speaking first, since your comments are likely to influence the conversation in a particular direction." Highly recommended especially for educators; Meeting Wise is also an extremely useful resource for any career professional.

Seeing Red, revised and updated
Jennifer Simmonds
New Society Publishers
PO Box 189
Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, V0R 1X0
9780865717602 $19.95 www.newsociety.com

Now in a revised and updated edition, Seeing Red: An Anger Management and Anti-Bullying Curriculum for Kids is a resource especially for educators of elementary and middle grade children. The offered curriculum is meant to be shared weekly in a confidential space with a consistent group. Activities can be adjusted according to the ages of one's students. The fundamental purpose is to teach young people healthy ways to deal with provocation and teasing, to control their emotions, be aware of hair-triggers, take responsibility for mistakes, and much more. Seeing Red includes an extensive anti-bullying component, including material specific to cyber-bullying and learning about social media. A user-friendly resource compatible with classroom activities or homeschooling, Seeing Red is highly recommended.

Proven Programs in Education: Science, Technology & Mathematics (STEM)
Robert E. Slavin, Editor
Corwin Press
2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320-2218
9781483351266, $25.95, www.corwin.com

Proven Programs in Education: Science, Technology & Mathematics (STEM) adds to the 'Proven Programs in Education' series, providing edited, updated selections of top articles - here covering the STEM process. From best practices which have been validated by research to an international perspective unusual in an educational compilation, this offers a wealth of sources suitable for STEM teachers and their classrooms; all backed by evidence-based practices, not theory. What's not to like?

Doing the Right Thing for Children
Maurice Sykes
Redleaf Press
10 Yorkton Court, St. Paul, MN 55117-1065
9781605542966, $24.95, www.redleafpress.org

Doing the Right Thing for Children: Eight Qualities of Leadership is for educators who want to absorb eight core leadership values and apply them to the education of young children, and it uses stories of successful applications to challenge educators to become leaders in early childhood education. It teaches the skills and habits of such leadership and shows how to use it in either classroom or individual teaching pursuits, and it uses the author's years of coaching leaders to discuss important connections between leaders and the education process as a whole. The result is applied coaching at its best, and a 'must' for educators!

Creative Play the Steiner Waldorf Way
Christopher Clouder & Janni Nicol
Octopus Publishing
236 Park Avenue, New York NY 10017
9781856753517, $14.99, www.octopuspublishing.com

Creative Play the Steiner Waldorf Way: Expertise and Toy Projects for your 2-4-year-old provides advice for parents on how to develop a child's creativity through creative play, showing how to let a child develop according to the Steiner theory, which helps them evolve holistically. Each chapter discusses a different piece of a child's development process, summarizing the Steiner theory and how it connects to this process. Tips on how to make some 20 toys from natural materials and how to incorporate them into a child's play makes for a fine survey highly recommended for crafts and education collections alike, as well as gatherings for parents and educators.


The Social Issues Shelf

Hatred, Lies, and Violence in the World of Islam
Raphael Israeli
Transaction Publishers
10 Corporate Place South, Piscataway, NJ 08854
9781412854009, $39.95, www.transactionpub.com

Hatred, Lies, and Violence in the World of Islam comes from one of the leading scholars in the field of Muslim and Middle Eastern studies and here uses original documents - many in local languages - to document the sources of lies and myths regarding Israel and its neighboring nations. It considers how social and religious ideologies and myths spread, it examines political changes and the Islam world, and it considers the evolution and perpetuation of lies and violence in Islam nations. The result is a solid scholarly analysis that belongs in the collections of any college concerned with Middle Eastern or Islamic affairs.


The Archaeology Shelf

The Great Archaeologists
Brian Fagan, Editor
Thames & Hudson
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017
9780500051818, $50.00, www.thamesandhudsonusa.com

The Great Archaeologists considers the history of archaeology and how scientists date relics and discover lost civilizations from evidence, and blends two centuries of research and excavation from around the world into a discussion of objects of the past. Chapters include personal accounts, photos and original drawings which supplement field notes and images, and offer a running history of the men and women explorers who created and contributed to the field of archaeology, making this a pick for science and general-interest readers alike.


The Science Shelf

A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics
Jean-Louis Tassoul and Monique Tassoul
Princeton University Press
41 William Street, Princeton, NJ 08540
9780691165929 $29.95 http://press.princeton.edu

A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics examines the evolution of the scientific discipline of astronomy from ancient times to modern-day discoveries. The reader's familiarity with the basics of calculus and physics is presumed; college students, scholars, and scientists will find A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics enlightening. Mathematical equations, occasional graphs, and a few black-and-white photographs illuminate the scientific principles in the text (and the pioneering researchers who developed them)! Appendices and an index round out this excellent resource especially recommended for college library astrophysics shelves.

The Human Age
Diane Ackerman
W. W. Norton & Company
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
9780393240740, $27.95, www.wwnorton.com

THE HUMAN AGE: THE WORLD SHAPED BY US provides a fine set of questions about how the wilderness, animals, habitats and nature of the world have changed human biology. It comes at the arrival of a new era, when mankind's impacts are moving from local and worldwide levels to planetary and geologic scales, and it considers the extent of humankind's impact on nature and the consequences of its actions. Here is the intersection of ecology, psychology and geology; all wound up in a package packed with insights on mankind's evolutionary impact. Science and philosophy readers will find it particularly accessible.


The Fantasy/SciFi Shelf

Wood Sprites
Wen Spencer
Baen Books
PO Box 1188, Wake Forest NC 27588
9781476736716, $25.00, www.baen.com

WOOD SPRITES provides a new sequel to TINKER, and it's recommended that readers pursue the first for a smooth transition before turning to this latest story. (Those who don't will surely find themselves looking to TINKER for another fine read!) Here two gifted students, twins Louise and Jillian, have always felt alone in their world. But they're nine when they discover they have four siblings still in cryogenic storage at a fertility center - embryos slated to be destroyed. When war erupts on Elfhome and riots begin in New York, the twins must hone their powers over science and magic to save not just their world, but everything surrounding it. Solid action and a blending of two universes are cemented by believable, engrossing protagonists in this winning tale.


The Music Shelf

Piano for Dummies, third edition
Adam Perlmutter, author
For Dummies
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
http://www.dummies.com
9781118900055, $24.99, www.amazon.com

"Piano for Dummies" is a condensed, simplified piano self instruction guide for adults who have some piano experience and background and desire to improve their skills further. Supplemented by a helpful list of accompanying audio tracks available at, www.dummies.com/go/piano that demonstrate 95 music examples, "Piano for Dummies" presents compacted piano instruction material in six main sections with 20 chapters. These include Getting Started with Piano, Deciphering Squiggles on Paper to Create Sound, One Hand at a Time, Living in Perfect Harmony, Technique Counts for Everything, and the Part of Tens. All this material is comfortably compressed and presented in logical sequences that progress from the small components and building blocks to the big picture. Musical examples from well-known songs, classical music, jazz, and other styles are used for teaching, each example is headed with a blackened track number to point out the appropriate audio resource. Black and white illustrations, standard notation, and using signpost symbols as reminders are all enhanced learning techniques employed. "Piano for Dummies" can assist purchasing or choosing a piano or keyboard, finding a good teacher, and improving technique, learning and piano performance skills. In addition, chapter 19 lists 10 suggested ways to supplement "Piano for Dummies" for those who want to explore further. "Piano for Dummies" is a well-organized, effectively presented, streamlined resource for adult keyboard students/performers who want to take their skills to the next level.

Sites of Popular Music Heritage
Edited by Sara Cohen, Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard, and Les Roberts, editors
Routledge
711 - 3rd Avenue, Floor 8, New York, NY 10017-9209
9780415824507 $125.00 www.routledge.com

Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places is an anthology of scholarly essays by learned authors, examining the challenges and conflicts involved in attempting to preserve a cultural record of popular music. Sometimes amateur collectors step up to archive music that is snubbed by more established institutions, but what is the overall effect on the world's musical legacy? Individual writings include "Popular Music and the 'Problem' of Heritage", "'Still Here?': A Geospatial Survey of Welsh-Language Popular Music", "Engaging Nostalgia: Popular Music and Memory in Museums", "Why I Didn't Go Down to the Delta: The Cultural Politics of Blues Tourism" and much more. An index rounds out this thoughtful, studious collection, especially recommended for college library Music Studies shelves.

Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Volume One
Ton an Bergeyk
Mel Bay Publications
PO Box 66, Pacific, MO 63069
9780786685950, $26.99, www.melbay.com

Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Volume One comes with three CDs of instruction which support a fine guide to fingerstyle guitar techniques, and comes from a musician who makes the style effortless. Six jazz pieces are taught through CD and a book of musical notations in different tunings, with each piece teaching a different fingerstyle technique. The result is a recommendation for any who like jazz music and who seek a fingerstyle instructional pairing CD with book.


The Travel Shelf

Lonely Planet Publications
150 Linden Street, Oakland CA 94607
www.lonelyplanet.com

Kerry Christiani's MALLORCA TRAVEL GUIDE (9781742207506, $21.99) is packed with recommendations for journeying around Mallorca, and is especially recommended for independent travelers looking to make the most of outdoor activities and tours outside the beaten path. From wildlife to travel with children, chapters cover where to stay and what to eat and do, include small maps and color-coded sidebars of special regional recommendations, and discuss what is worth seeing. The result is a top pick for any independent traveler planning a journey to Mallorca. Sarah Baxter's THE BEST PLACE TO BE TODAY: 365 Things to Do and the Perfect Day to Do Them (9781743601655, $19.99) offers a year's worth of daily adventures for those who want to travel on an experience basis. These inspirations offer the opportunity for advance planning and cover everything from festivals and sporting events to natural and seasonal phenomena, and they come with eye-catching color photos throughout. At-a-glance information covers the event, country, 'why now', dates or approximate months, and where the event takes place. Most travel books cover a country and include such events along the way; but for those who would plan a trip based on the event itself, this approach can't be beat; especially since it offers the opportunity for long-range planning.

Our World Tour
Mario Dirks
Rocky Nook
802 East Cota Street, 3rd Floor
Santa Barbara, CA 93103
9781937538361, $44.95, www.rockynook.com

Our World Tour: A Photographic Journey Around the Earth comes from a photographer and tells of the journey he undertook when camera manufacturer Sigma sent him on a year-long assignment to photograph the most beautiful places on earth. He spent some 50 weeks visiting some 77 cities, 48 countries, and 6 continents, and his photos - over three hundred of them - pack a fine account pairing global sights with a travel diary and notes on the photo process. While Our World Tour would seem a pick for travel collections, the addition of many photographic insights makes for an exceptional presentation highly recommended for any involved in photography or travel.


The Writing/Publishing Shelf

2015 Writer's Market
Robert Lee Brewer, Editor
Writer's Digest Books
c/o F+W Media
700 East State Street, Iola WI 54945
9781599638409, $29.99, www.writersdigest.com

The 2015 Writer's Market appears in its 94th annual updated edition - and in case you wondered why can update would be needed, be advised that each edition represents the many changes of policy, editorial needs, and contacts that represent a changing, dynamic writer's market. The focus here is not just on getting published, but getting paid for one's writing. New editorial material covers the changing business of writing and promotions, from pitching an idea to agents and editors and building readers to obtaining freelance writing work through social media. The pay rate chart has been updated, there are lists of professional writing groups and sample query letters, and everything has been updated to reflect the latest information, making this a winning guide for any who want to make a living by writing.


The Literary Studies Shelf

The Woman in the Window
Russell Scott Valentino
Ohio State University Press
180 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road
Columbus, OH 43210-1002
9780814212677 $54.95 www.ohiostatepress.org

Russell Scott Valentino (professor and chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Indiana University of Bloomington) presents The Woman in the Window: Commerce, Consensual Fantasy, and the Quest for Masculine Virtue in the Russian Novel, a literary analysis that presents a new way to examine the construction of virtue as depicted in Russian literature. As a new type of economic world destabilized and transformed Russia from the early nineteenth century onward, authors grappled with the question: how could a self-interested commercial man be perceived as a socially upstanding, masculine character or protagonist? Among the various classic works scrutinized are Gogol's "Dead Souls", Nabokov's "Lolita", and DeLillo's "Cosmopolis". Notes, a bibliography/filmography, and an index round out this studious and worthy contribution to literary studies shelves.

Rebel Souls
Justin Martin
DaCapo Press
c/o Perseus Book Group
250 W. 57th St., Suite 1500, New York, NY 10107
www.perseusbooksgroup.com
9780306822261, $27.99, www.dacapopress.com

REBEL SOULS: WALT WHITMAN AND AMERICA'S FIRST BOHEMIANS fills a gap in the literature about Whitman's connection to New York City's Pfaff's Saloon, a basement bar which contributed vastly to his growth as a notable poet. From how his 'circle of Bohemians' developed from this root to how the bar fostered an atmosphere of growth and change, this documents a key social elements in what was to become a literary revolution, and finally places one of Whitman's key influences in proper perspective. No collection covering Whitman's life and development would be complete without this coverage.

The Quotable Stoic
Michael Lipsey
Lost Coast Press
155 Cypress Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437
9781935448235, $11.95, www.cyprsshouse.com

The Quotable Stoic - A Book of Original Aphorisms provides a concise collection of quotes that represent 'truth condensed into a few words that express much'. Early aphorisms were inscriptions in verse carved into tombstones and more; but they evolved over the centuries into witty, satirical observations of life. Mark Twain excelled in them, as one modern example - and this book organizes a range of aphorisms from over the years into categories, giving them new life and fun. From chapters on manners and attitudes, to wealth and vanity, these are fine literary pieces that deserve a place in literature and general-interest holdings alike.


The Mystery/Suspense Shelf

The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush
Susan Wittig Albert
Berkeley Prime Crime
c/o Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson Street, 4th floor, New York, NY 10014
9780425260609, $25.95, www.penguin.com

The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush returns to the small town of Darling, Alabama in the 1930s where the women of a garden club are facing the local bank's sudden closure in 1933. Everything is tough; but hardest of all is a plan hatched by business leaders to print a new form of temporary money to keep the town afloat: a plan that backfires when the first printing vanishes. A host of events steeped in satisfying small town interrelationships and intrigue makes for a lovely mystery.


The Fashion Shelf

Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV
Kathryn Norberg and Sandra Rosenbaum, Editors
Texas Tech University Press
PO Box 41037, Lubbock, TX 79409-1037
9780896728578, $45.95, www.ttupress.org

Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV: Interpreting the Art of Elegance is recommended for college-level arts collections strong in fashion history, and examines the attire of men and women in Paris between 1678 and 1710: an era replete with high fashion examples. Usually such prints are presented for their visual impact and aren't accompanied by in-depth history or critical review: not so here, in a book which blends art history, costume history, French culture, and more to explore what these prints represent about 17th century fashion culture. Over a hundred illustrations accompany one of the most in-depth coverages in print, offering a pairing of colorful pictures and fashion observations key to any arts history holding.


The Pets/Wildlife Shelf

My Dog's Journal
Michael Powell
Spruce
c/o Octopus Publishing
236 Park Avenue, New York NY 10017
9781846014758, $12.99, www.octopuspublishing.com

MY DOG'S JOURNAL: PUPPY MILESTONES... TRAINING TACTICS... DOGGY IQ AND MORE includes UK illustrator Gemma Correll's fun drawings and provides an activity album that will serve as a personal record of one's dog. It blends the journal format with a training manual and scrapbook, includes advice on how to keep a dog healthy, and adds activities ranging from dog games and makeovers to video ideas to capture his fun moments. Add blank pages for a dog's photos and you have a fun, appealing collection.

The Little Book of Corgi Charm
Trevor Davies
Spruce
c/o Octopus Publishing
236 Park Avenue, New York NY 10017
9781845014765, $9.99, www.octopuspublishing.com

The Little Book of Corgi Charm: Words of Cheer from the World's Smiliest Dog gathers fifty corgi dog photos and pairs them with positive sayings and fun observations representing the 'corgi philosophy'. It's intended as part inspirational gift book and part celebration of the corgi breed, and will make a fun gift for any corgi owner; especially those who like engaging animal pictures.


The Biography Shelf

W. W. Norton & Company
500 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10110
www.wwnorton.com

Two fine explorations of American history are provided in these paperback reprints of two classics by Joseph P. Lash, originally published in the early 1970s: ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN (9780393349757, $17.95 print / $9.99 Kindle) and ELEANOR: THE YEARS ALONE (9780393349764, $15.95 print / $9.99 Kindle). The author encountered Eleanor Roosevelt when he was a student and political activist: from their encounter sprung an association that lasted for decades as a professional friendship. His two discussions uses letters and papers in the presidential library in New York to follow Eleanor's life; from her beginning as an orphan and the evolution of a relationship with Franklin to her transition to a public role and political figure and, finally, her years after Franklin's death. While the volumes stand powerfully on their own, they are especially valuable works when considered as a set for either biography or American history collections.


The Military Shelf

Operation Thunderclap and the Black March
Richard Allison
Casemate Publishers
908 Darby Road
Havertown, PA19083
9781612002651 $34.95 www.casematepublishing.com

Thoroughly accessible to readers of all backgrounds, Operation Thunderclap and the Black March: Two World War II Stories from the Unstoppable 91st Bomb Group tells of Operation Thunderclap, the Allies' offensive launched in February 1945 during World War II. These were deep-penetration air raids that placed extraordinary demands on bomber crews. The divergent stories of two B-17 crew members are the central focus; one crew member flew 31 missions until the end of the war, and other was shot down during his first combat mission and taken prisoner, but survived the deadly Black March of 6,000 Allied POWs, one-quarter of whom died to the elements, disease, starvation, and exhaustion. A vivid portrayal of the horrors of war through the eyes of brave soldiers, Operation Thunderclap and the Black March is a welcome addition to World War II history shelves.

Canine Warrior
John C. Burnam
Lost Coast Press
155 Cypress Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437
9781935448242 $28.95 www.cypresshouse.com

Author John C. Burnam, Master Sergeant, U.S. Army (Ret.) served in the military as a German shepherd scout-dog handler during the Vietnam War. During and after the war, he gained a tremendous appreciation for the dogs' keen senses; their smell, hearing, and sight were far more acute than those of humans, enabling them to find enemy ammunition and supplies as well as camouflaged tunnel entrances. Service dogs saved countless American lives by enabling American troops to avoid ambushes and booby traps. Canine Warrior: How a Vietnam Scout Dog Inspired a National Monument tells the true stories of war dogs in the combat zones of Vietnam. The loyalty of these animals would eventually be honored with a national monument, in part due to the efforts of Burnam and other colleagues who respect the dogs' bravery and faithful service. A fascinating, heavily researched, and at times keenly personal testimony of the soldier-and-dog teams of Vietnam, Canine Warrior is highly recommended.


The Psychology Shelf

Psychological Practice With Women
Carolyn Zerbe Enns, Joy K. Rice, Roberta L. Nutt, eds.
Marketing Department
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242
www.apa.org/books
9781433818127, $69.95, 304pp, www.amazon.com

Collaboratively compiled and edited by the team of Carolyn Zerbe Enns (Professor of Psychology, Cornell Collge), Joy K. Rice (Clinical Psychologist and Emerita Professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison), and Roberta L. Nutt (Training Director of the Counseling Psychology Doctoral program, University of Houston), "Psychological Practice With Women: Guidelines, Diversity, Empowerment" is a 304 page compendium is comprised of ten major scholarly articles presenting and illustrating practice guidelines for working with diverse groups of women. Drawing on psychological, multicultural, and feminist research, the individual papers consider many of the unique concerns of specific groups of women, including Black/African American women; Latinas; lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women; Asian-Pacific Islander women; Native women; women with disabilities; and women in transnational and international contexts. Ample case studies apply the guidelines, emphasizing how practitioners can use clients strengths and resilience to promote empowerment. Enhanced with a comprehensive Index, "Psychological Practice With Women: Guidelines, Diversity, Empowerment" is an important and highly recommended addition to academic library Psychology/Psychiatry Studies collections in general, and Feminist Psychology Studies supplemental reading lists in particular.


The Mathematics Shelf

Fractal Geometry, third edition
Kenneth Falconer
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
9781119942399, $60.00, www.amazon.com

A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern. Fractals can also be nearly the same at different levels. Fractals also includes the idea of a detailed pattern that repeats itself. Fractals are different from other geometric figures because of the way in which they scale. Doubling the edge lengths of a polygon multiplies its area by four, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old side length) raised to the power of two (the dimension of the space the polygon resides in). Likewise, if the radius of a sphere is doubled, its volume scales by eight, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old radius) to the power of three (the dimension that the sphere resides in). But if a fractal's one-dimensional lengths are all doubled, the spatial content of the fractal scales by a power of two that is not necessarily an integer. This power is called the fractal dimension of the fractal, and it usually exceeds the fractal's topological dimension. As mathematical equations, fractals are usually nowhere differentiable. Now available in a fully updated and expanded third edition, "Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications" by Kenneth Falconer (University of St. Andrews, UK) is a 400 page introduction to the complex mathematical science of fractal geometry. Enhanced with the inclusion of fourteen pages of References and a comprehensive Index, "Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications" will prove an ideal textbook for either undergraduate or graduate level curriculums and a core addition to academic library Advanced Mathematics reference collections. It should be noted that "Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications" is also available as an eTextbook ($46.92).


The Native American Studies Shelf

The Edge of the Woods
Jon Parmenter
University of Manitoba Press
301 St. John's College
Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3T 2M5
9780887557668 $29.95 www.uofmpress.ca

The Edge of the Woods is a scholarly examination of the Iroquois nation, called "Iroquoia", during the 16th and 17th centuries. Although the time period covered involves the resounding impact of Euopean colonization, this history especially focuses upon Iroquoia, drawing both upon Iroquois oral history and the latest archaeological findings. "Evidence suggests that Iroquois traders, whose freedom to travel and trade was guaranteed by League 'covenants' with New France and New York, had acquired intimate knowledge of both the Albany and Montreal markets by the late 1670s. After obtaining high-quality pelts from the north shore of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence valley, Iroquois hunters exchanged some locally to French traders, either in Montreal or 'in the bush.'" Maps, figures, and exhaustive notes round out this extremely studious text, ideal for college library Native American Studies shelves.

American Indians in U.S. History, second edition
Roger L. Nichols
University of Oklahoma Press
2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069
9780806143675 $24.95 www.oupress.com

Now in a revised second edition with more focus placed upon Native American social, economic, and cultural issues, American Indians in U.S. History is a concise, scholarly survey of American Indians from prehistory to the twenty-first century. The saga of American Indian tribes is divided into four main eras: pre-colonial, colonial, during the United States' rise to power as a nation, and 1900 onward. Both Euro-American and tribal sources form the basis of this serious-minded chronicle of war, genocide, cultural suppression, resistance, and survival. "...One observer denounced those who favored legalizing tribal ceremonies as 'idiotic, exceedingly stupid, and ignorant.' Yet, during the 1930s, as they came to realize that most Indian religions encouraged family stability and abstinence from alcohol, some health-care workers and bureaucrats changed their minds. As a result, these pan-tribal religious groups came to be seen as helping to improve reservation life, and gradually whites recognized some Native healers as having legitimate places in their communities." Highly recommended, especially for public and college library history and Native American Studies shelves.


The Women's Studies Shelf

Changing the Game
Joanne L. Goodwin
University of Nevada Press
Mail Stop 0166, Reno, NV, 89557-0166
9780874179606 $27.95 www.unpress.nevada.edu

Changing the Game: Women at Work in Las Vegas, 1940-1990 explores a historical change in Las Vegas that reflected evolving cultural attitudes toward women in America. As the Las Vegas hotel and casino industry expanded in the 1940s, more and more women entered the local workforce - for the next fifty years, a notably greater proportion of Las Vegas women worked than the proportion of American working women as a whole. Changing the Game looks at both the microcosm of individual women's efforts to earn economic success, and how their work experience foreshadowed trends in the American labor force. Topics discussed include the challenges of balancing work with family responsibilities, the unionization of service workers, and especially the desegregation of the labor force by sex and race. Notes and an index round out this studious, analytical evaluation, especially recommended for American History and Women's Studies shelves.


The Political Science Shelf

The Secret Coalition
Gary A. Donaldson
Carrel Books
c/o Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
9781631440007 $34.95 print
www.skyhorsepublishing.com

Also available as an ebook, The Secret Coalition: Ike, LBJ, and the Search for a Middle Way in the 1950s is the history of an American era of political compromise. In the 1950's, the American President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower was a moderate Republican, who resisted the reactionary elements of his own party, and the Senate leader was the Democrat Lyndon "LBJ" Johnson, a consummate "horse trader" skilled at the art of negotiation. Both men believed in working together; both were willing to partly compromise their ideals for the greater good. They shaped the 1950's as a time of political moderation, well worth studying given today's extreme political polarization, to the brink of holding America's credit rating hostage. Researched with scholarly precision, yet accessible to readers of all backgrounds, The Secret Coalition includes extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index. A welcome contribution to American History and Political Science shelves.

Immigration and the Border
David L. Leal and Jose E. Limon, editors
University of Notre Dame Press
310 Flanner Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556
9780268013356 $46.00 www.undpress.nd.edu

Immigration and the Border: Politics and Policy in the New Latino Century is an anthology of essays by learned authors concerning a modern hot-button topic - the current and ongoing "fourth wave" of immigration to America, which is primarily Latino. A political backlash against unauthorized immigration, so strong as to be felt by all Latino-Americans including those who are lawful citizens, is currently ongoing. Immigration and the Border directly addresses the facts driving these crucial social issues. Individual writings include "The Political Consequences of Latino Immigrant Transnational Ties", "U.S. and Mexican Schools as Regulators of Dropout Rates for Chicano Students", "Indecent Proposal? The Rise and Success of Arizona Propositions 200", "Latino Youth Activists in the Age of Globalization", and much more. Immigration and the Border is an invaluable repository of information, and a welcome contribution to public and college library shelves.


The Large Print Shelf

High Noon in Snake Ridge
Scott Connor
Ulverscroft Large Print (USA), Inc.
PO Box 1230, West Seneca, NY 14224-1230
9781444819922 $20.99 www.ulverscroftusa.com

Part of the Linford Western Library series, High Noon in Snake Ridge is a large-print paperback packed with Old West adventure. When Matthew Jennings returns to Snake Ridge to reconcile with his family, he is alarmed to find his brother dead. He accepts a job as deputy town marshal to facilitate the hunt for his brother's murderer, but the apparent evidence points to the one man that Matthew cannot imagine to be the killer - Matthew's own father! Worse, a bloodthirsty outlaw delivers Matthew an ultimatum to leave town by noon or die, setting the stage for a lethal showdown! High Noon in Snake Ridge is especially recommended for fans of the genre, as well as public library Western and Large Print collections.


The Health/Medicine Shelf

Pilates for Breast Cancer Survivors
Naomi Aaronson, MA, OTR/L, CHT, CPI, CET and Ann Marie Turo, OTR/L
Demos Health
11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036
9781936303571 $21.95 www.demoshealth.com

Professional occupational therapists Naomi Aaronson and Ann Marie Turo present Pilates for Breast Cancer Survivors: A Guide to Recovery, Healing, and Wellness, a step-by-step resource to to improving one's fitness level, flexibility, and endurance while relieving cancer treatment side effects such as lymphedema, fatigue, depression, peripheral neuropathy (damage to the nerves that can affect sensation or movement), osteoporosis, and upper extremity impairment. Black-and-white photography demonstrates the movements and exercises that anyone can perform, at the gym or in the privacy of their own home. An excellent, user-friendly guide for therapists and laypeople alike, Pilates for Breast Cancer Survivors is also available as an ebook.


The Biology Shelf

The Genetics and Biology of Sexual Conflict
William R. Rice and Sergey Gavrilets, editors
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
500 Sunnyside Boulevard
Woodbury NY 11797-2924
9781621820598 $135.00 www.cshlpress.com

The Genetics and Biology of Sexual Conflict is a scholarly anthology of essays written and edited by professional biologists about the principles that drive the biology of sexual conflict in nature, and their role in the evolution of animal species. Writings include "The Evolution of Sexually Antagonistic Phenotypes", "Sexual Conflict, Life Span, and Aging", "Sex Chromosome Drive", "Infanticide as Sexual Conflict: Coevolution of Male Strategies and Female Counterstrategies", "Is Sexual Conflict an 'Engine of Speciation'?" and much more. Extensive research, citations, and an index underscore this cutting-edge scientific compendium, especially recommended for college library biology collections.


The 2015 Calendar Shelf

AQS 2015 Wall Calendar
American Quilter's Society
PO Box 3290, Paducah, KY 42002-3290
9781604601589, $12.95, www.americanquilter.com

AQS 2015 Wall Calendar pairs a vivid monthly picture of an outstanding quilt production with the usual wall calendar format replete with fill-in squares for easy dates and inspirational images, and is a pick for any quilter who wants a new inspiration per month. These thirteen quilts are award winners from the annual American Quilter's Society quiltweek contest in Kentucky, so they are exceptional representations of a quilter's advanced achievements.


James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com


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