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New Fiction February 2012
The
Third Reich, by Roberto Bolano
On vacation with his girlfriend, Ingeborg, the German war games champion Udo
Berger returns to a small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers
of his childhood. Soon they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly
and Hanna, who introduce them to a band of locals—the Wolf, the Lamb, and El
Quemado—and to the darker side of life in a resort town.
Late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udo’s well-ordered
life is thrown into upheaval; while Ingeborg and Hanna return to their lives
in Germany, he refuses to leave the hotel. Soon he and El Quemado are
enmeshed in a round of Third Reich, Udo’s favorite World War II strategy
game, and Udo discovers that the game’s consequences may be all too real.
Written in 1989 and found among Roberto Bolańo’s papers after his death, The
Third Reich is a stunning exploration of memory and violence. Reading this
quick, visceral novel, we see a world-class writer coming into his own—and
exploring for the first time the themes that would define his masterpieces
The Savage Detectives and 2666. F Bola
A Good Man, by Guy Vanderhaeghe
In the ambitious and masterful final novel of his bestselling trilogy, Guy
Vanderhaeghe, returns to the nineteenth century Canadian and American West
to explore the final days of one of the world’s last great frontiers.
Wesley Case is a former soldier and son of a Canadian lumber baron who sets
out into the untamed borderlands between Canada and the United States to
escape a dark secret from his past. He settles in Montana where he hopes to
buy a cattle ranch, and where he begins work as a liaison between the
American and Canadian militaries in an effort to contain the Native
Americans’ unresolved anger in the wake of the Civil War. Amidst the brutal
violence that erupts between the Sioux warriors and U.S. forces, Case’s plan
for a quiet ranch life is further compromised by an unexpected dilemma: he
falls in love with the beautiful, outspoken, and recently widowed Ada Tarr.
It’s a budding romance that soon inflames the jealousy of Ada’s quiet and
deeply disturbed admirer, Michael Dunne. When the American government
unleashes its final assault on the Indians, Dunne commences his own vicious
plan for vengeance in one last feverish attempt to claim Ada as his own.
Call # F Vand
Leela’s Book, by Alice Albinia
With a nod to the Indian masterpiece the Mahabharata, a multithreaded,
raucous epic about family and faith. Bold and entertaining, Leela’s
Book weaves a tale of contemporary Delhi that crosses religious and social
boundaries. Leela—alluring, taciturn, haunted—is moving from New York back
to Delhi, where her return will unsettle precariously balanced lives.
Twenty-five years earlier, her sister was seduced by the egotistical Vyasa.
Now an eminent Sanskrit scholar, Vyasa is preparing for his son’s marriage.
But when Leela arrives, she disrupts the careful choreography of the
wedding, with its myriad attendees and their conflicting desires.
Gleefully presiding over the drama is Ganesh—divine, ¬elephant-headed scribe
of the Mahabharata, India’s great epic. The family may think they have
arranged the wedding for their own selfish ends, but according to Ganesh it
is he who is directing events—in a bid to save Leela, his beloved heroine,
from Vyasa. Call # F Albi
The Call, by Yannick Murphy
The daily rhythm of a veterinarian’s family in rural New England is shaken
when a hunting accident leaves their eldest son in a coma. With the lives of
his loved ones unhinged, the veterinarian struggles to maintain stability
while searching for the man responsible. But in the midst of their great
trial an unexpected visitor arrives, requesting a favor that will have
profound consequences—testing a loving father’s patience, humor, and resolve
and forcing husband and wife to come to terms with what “family” truly
means.
The Call is a gift from one of the most talented and extraordinary voices in
contemporary fiction—a unique and heartfelt portrait of a family, poignant
and rich in humor and imagination. Call # F Murp
The Translation of the Bones, by
Francesca Kay
Mary-Margaret O'Reilly is seemingly a harmless enough young woman, ready and
willing to help out Father Diamond in the Sacred Heart church in Battersea.
She may not be very bright, and she is sadly overweight, but she can
certainly clean. She is also very good with children, and helps out an Asian
woman on her estate whose little boy Shamso is adorable. It is the
statue of Jesus on the cross Mary-Margaret is especially drawn to, and one
day she decides to give Him a thorough and loving cleansing. But then
something strange happens, and moments later she lies unconscious, a great
gash in her head, blood on the floor. Word gets out that this strange
happening is the opening of the statue's eyes and the flowing of blood from
its head. Soon a full-scale religious mania descends on the quiet church,
and everyone, from Father Diamond to his small but loyal band of
parishioners, is affected by it. When she has recovered, Mary-Margaret
returns to the church, and to her duties caring for her housebound and even
fatter mother Fidelma. Among the parishioners, Stella Morrison meanwhile
impatiently awaits the return of her son Felix from boarding school, and
Alice Armitage the return of her much older son from Afghanistan.
Mary-Margaret goes back obsessively to the statue of Jesus. He has told her
things, things she must act on, and urgently. But He has become remote and
uncommunicative once again, and she is in despair. The act she decides on is
a shocking one, and it will bring together the lives of the O'Reillys and
the Morrisons in a way that will change their lives forever. Call # F Kay
Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a
large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once
against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered
a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Jane, the evolved computer intelligence,
can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move
ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world,
abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power
available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world
by world. Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's
children must save her if they are to save themselves. Call # F Card
Reefs and Shoals, by Dewey Lambdin
Pity poor Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy! He’s been wind-muzzled for
weeks in Portsmouth, snugly tucked into a warm shore bed with lovely, and
loving, Lydia Stangbourne, a Viscount’s daughter, and beginning to enjoy
indulging his idle streak, when Admiralty tears Lewrie away and order him to
the Bahamas, into the teeth of ferocious winter storms. It’s enough to make
a rakehell such as he weep and kick furniture! At least his new
orders allow Lewrie to form a small squadron from what ships he can dredge
up at Bermuda and New Providence and hoist his first broad pendant, even if
it is the lesser version, and style himself a Commodore. Lewrie
is to scour the shores of Cuba and Spanish Florida, the Keys and the Florida
Straits in search of French and Spanish privateers which have been taking
British merchantmen at an appalling rate, and call upon neutral American
seaports to determine if privateers are getting aid and comfort from that
quarter. Lewrie is to be “Diplomatic.” Diplomatic? Lewrie? Not bloody
likely! To solve the problem and find the answers will put
Lewrie in touch with old friends, old foes, and more frustration than a dog
has fleas. As usual, though, Captain Alan Lewrie will find his own unique
way to fulfill his duties, and in the doing, find some fun in his own
irrepressible manner!
Call # F Lamb
Lost Memory of Skin, by Russell
Banks
The acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone returns
with a provocative new novel that illuminates the shadowed edges of
contemporary American culture with startling and unforgettable results
Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the
center of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must
create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new
identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison
with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and
forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With
nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida
causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders.
Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid, despite his crime, is in many ways
an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices he himself struggles to
comprehend. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets
and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds
in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and
recidivism among convicted sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative
partnership, the Kid remaining wary of the Professor’s motives even as he
accepts the counsel and financial assistance of the older man. When
the camp beneath the causeway is raided by the police, and later, when a
hurricane all but destroys the settlement, the Professor tries to help the
Kid in practical matters while trying to teach his young charge new ways of
looking at, and understanding, what he has done. But when the Professor’s
past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world,
the balance in the two men’s relationship shifts. Suddenly, the Kid
must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of
action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision.
Long one of our most acute and insightful novelists, Russell Banks often
examines the indistinct boundaries between our intentions and actions. A
mature and masterful work of contemporary fiction from one of our most
accomplished storytellers, Lost Memory of Skin unfolds in language both
powerful and beautifully lyrical, show-casing Banks at his most compelling,
his reckless sense of humor and intense empathy at full bore.
The perfect convergence of writer and subject, Lost Memory of Skin probes
the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope
of subtlety and compassion—a society where isolating the offender has
perhaps created a new kind of victim.
Call # F Bank
Into the Hinterlands, by David
Drake and John Lambshead
#1 in a new series from a military science fiction master with over 3
million books in print. A young hero comes of age in the crucible of war and
galactic struggle. When Allen Allenson, scion of a noble family that has
fallen on hard times, gets a mission to roust the power-hungry Terrans from
a “wild” star sector where they’re encroaching, he jumps at the chance to
show his individual worth, improve his family’s fortunes – and gather enough
lucre to make a good marriage. But the wily Terrans are not so easily
persuaded by a young colonial they think of as a rube. Worse,
Riders, the beings who naturally ply the wilderness between the stars, are
playing their own deadly political games – against the Terrans, against the
colonials, and against one young greenhorn commander in particular: naĎf
young Allen, whom they figure they can manipulate to do their bidding. The
one thing nobody has counted on is the fact that Allen, while young and
inexperienced, and much to his own amazement, happens to be a hero in the
making. Call # F Drak
Baltimore Chronicles, Volume 1,
by Treasure Hernandez
From the same author that brought you the Flint series comes a new town . .
. a new drama. Treasure Hernandez is back with her second street series,
chronicling both sides of Baltimore’s black market. Derek Fuller is the head
detective of a Baltimore narcotics unit. His team has been assigned to take
down the biggest drug operation in the city. There’s only one problem: the
head of the operation is his brother, Scar Johnson. Separated in Baltimore’s
foster care system, they came from two different walks of life, but both met
at the top on opposite sides of the law. With the Assistant District
Attorney in their back pocket, this was a marriage made in heaven—until the
drama and deceit enters. Delve into this treacherous story of love, deceit,
lies, and murder. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and once one brother
feels betrayed, the only retribution is death.
Call # F Trea
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New Nonfiction February 2012
Best
American Comics 2011, edited by Alison Bechdel
The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and
up-and-coming contributors. Editor Alison Bechdel — creater of the cult
comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For" and author of Fun Home— has culled the
best stories from graphic novels, pamplet comics, newspapers, magazines,
mini-comics and webcomics to create this cutting-edge collection. With
entries from Joe Sacco, Jeff Smith, and Dash Shaw, this edtion delivers "a
thrilling and varied journey from start to finish" (Publishers Weekly).
Call # 741.6 Bech
A Positive View of LGBTQ:
embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being, by Ellen D.B. Riggle and
Sharon S. Rostosky
A Positive View of LGBTQ starts a new conversation about the strengths and
benefits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGTBQ)
identities. Positive LGBTQ identities are affirmed through inspiring
firsthand accounts. Focusing on how LGTBQ-identified individuals can
cultivate a sense of well-being and a personal identity that allows them to
flourish in all areas of life, the authors explore a variety of themes.
Through personal stories from people with a variety of backgrounds and
gender and sexual identities, readers will learn more about expressing
gender and sexuality; creating strong and intimate relationships; exploring
unique perspectives on empathy, compassion, and social justice; belonging to
communities and acting as role models and mentors; and, enjoying the
benefits of living an authentic life. Providing exercises in each chapter,
the book offers those who identify as LGBTQ and those who support and love
them, as well as those seeking to better understand them, an opportunity to
explore and appreciate these identities. Call # 155.33 Rigg
Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the
Way we Eat, One Hunt at a Time, by Georgia Pellegrini
What happens when a classically-trained New York chef and fearless omnivore
heads out of the city and into the wild to track down the ingredients for
her meals? After abandoning Wall Street to embrace her lifelong love of
cooking, Georgia Pellegrini comes face to face with her first kill. From
honoring that first turkey to realizing that the only way we truly know
where our meat comes from is if we hunt it ourselves, Pellegrini embarks on
a wild ride into the real world of local, organic, and sustainable food.
Teaming up with veteran hunters, she trav¬els over field and stream in
search of the main course—from quail to venison and wild boar, from elk to
javelina and squirrel. Pellegrini’s road trip careens from the back of an
ATV chasing wild hogs along the banks of the Mississippi to a dove hunt with
beer and barbeque, to the birthplace of the Delta Blues. Along the way, she
meets an array of unexpected characters—from the Commish, a venerated
lifelong hunter, to the lawyer-by day, duck-hunting-Bayou-philosopher at
dawn—who offer surprising lessons about food and life. Pellegrini also
discovers the dangerous underbelly of hunting when an outing turns
illegal—and dangerous. More than a food-laden hunting narrative,
Girl Hunteralso teaches you how to be a self-sufficient eater.
An inspiring, illuminating, and often funny jour¬ney into unexplored
territories of haute cuisine, Girl Hunter captures the joy of rolling up
your sleeves and getting to the heart of where the food you eat comes from.
Call # 799.2082 Pell
Hinges: Meditations on the
Portals of the Imagination, by Grace Dane Mazur
Grace Dane Mazur uses the idea of the hinge to illuminate real and
metaphysical thresholds in fiction, poetry, myth, and ordinary life. From
ancient narratives of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Parmenides, and Orpheus, to
modern works by Katherine Mansfield and Eudora Welty, the exploration of the
Other World acts as a metaphor for the entrancement of reading and writing.
Looking at Lascaux, Renaissance and Byzantine images of Christ harrowing
Hell, Rubens, Vermeer, and others Mazur contemplates writing, attention,
Hades, the gates of Hell, trap doors, demons, love, the human body,
forbidden looking, Virgil, Ovid, Nicodemus, Nighttown, and the melancholy of
twilight.
Call # 818.64 Mazu
The Art of Instruction: Vintage
Educational Charts from the 19th and 20th Centuries, by Katherine Van der
Schueren
Large-scale wall charts were fundamental tools of classroom instruction
throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Collected
here for the first time in one deluxe volume are over 100 of these vintage
educational posters now important relics in the history of science, art, and
design. From the anatomy of a tulip or an apple tree to that of a hedgehog
or starfish, the botanical and zoological images in this collection are
captivating with their curious visuals and intricate details. With a
compelling introduction about the history of educational charts and their
production, The Art of Instruction provides a glimpse into a rich,
significant heritage and will enlighten those with an interest in art,
design, science, or natural history. Call # 371.335 Art
A History of the World in 100
Objects, by Neil MacGregor
From the renowned director of the British Museum, a kaleidoscopic history of
humanity told through things we have made. When did people first start to
wear jewelry or play music? When were cows domesticated and why do we feed
their milk to our children? Where the first cities and what were made them
succeed? Who invented math-or came up with money? The history of
humanity is a history of invention and innovation, as we have continually
created new items to use, to admire, or to leave our mark on the world. In
this original and thought-provoking book, Neil MacGregor, director of the
British Museum, has selected one hundred man-made artifacts, each of which
gives us an intimate glimpse of an unexpected turning point in human
civilization. A History of the World in 100 Objects stretches back two
million years and covers the globe. From the very first hand axe to the
ubiquitous credit card, each item has a story to tell; together they relate
the larger history of mankind-revealing who we are by looking at what we
have made. Handsomely designed, with more than 150 color
photographs throughout the text, A History of the World in 100 Objects is a
gorgeous reading book and makes a great gift for anyone interested in
history.
Call # 930.1 MacG
Our Patchwork Nation, by Dante
Chinni and James Gimpel
A provocative counterargument to the blue/red divide that illuminates
our country's multidimensional political spectrum. In a climate of
culture wars and economic uncertainty, the media have often reduced America
to a simplistic schism between red and blue states. In response to that
oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political
geographer James Gimpel, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical
analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in
depth. Looking at the data, they recognized that the country breaks
into twelve distinct types of communities, whose differences and specific
concerns shed light on the subtle distinctions in how Americans vote, shop,
and otherwise behave. Showcasing personal interviews, combined with facts
and statistics, Our Patchwork Nation offers a brilliant new way to examine
the issues that matter most to our communities, and to our nation. Call #
307.0973 Chin
Agatha Christie, Murder in the
Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks, by John Curran
This follow-up to the Edgar-nominated Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks
features Christie’s unpublished work, including an analysis of her last
unfinished novel, and a foreword by the acclaimed actor David Suchet.
In this invaluable work, the Agatha Christie expert and archivist John
Curran examines the unpublished notebooks of the world’s bestselling author
to explore the techniques she used to surprise and entertain generations of
readers. Also drawing on Christie’s personal papers and letters, he reveals
how more than twenty of her novels, as well as stage scripts, short stories,
and some more personal items, evolved. As he addresses the last notebook,
Curran uses his deep knowledge of Christie to offer an insightful,
well-reasoned analysis of her final unfinished work, based on her notes.
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making features several wonderful gems,
including Christie’s own essay on her famous detective, Hercule Poirot,
written for a British national newspaper in the 1930s; a previously unseen
version of a Miss Marple short story; and a courtroom chapter from her first
novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was edited out of the
published version in 1920. A must-read for every Christie
aficionado, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making is a fascinating look into
the mind and craft of one of the world’s most prolific and beloved authors,
offering a deeper understanding of her impressive body of work. Call #
823.912 Curr
Everyday People, by Albert
Goldbarth
The not-at-all-everyday new poetry collection by Albert Goldbarth, twice
winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
I brought a book of many words
to an emptiness in my heart,
and I shook them out in there, to fill it.
In my time I wrote this very thing.
In your time you read it.
—from “What We Were Like”
Virtuoso poet Albert Goldbarth returns with a new collection that describes
the wonders of everyday people—overprotective parents, online gamblers,
newlyweds, Hercules, and Jesus. In Goldbarth’s poetry—expansive, wild, and
hilarious—he argues that our ordinary failures, heroics, joy, and grief are
worth giving voice to, giving thanks for. Everyday People is an
extraordinary new book by a poet who “in thirty-five years of writing has
amassed a body of work as substantial and intelligent as that of anyone in
his generation” (William Doreski, The Harvard Review). Call # 811.54 Gold
Daytripper, by Fabio Moon &
Gabriel Ba
DAYTRIPPER follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every
chapter features an important period in Bras’ life in exotic Brazil, and
each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story
starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the
previous issue – and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter,
Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through
his entire existence – one filled with possibilities of happiness and
sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness. Each issue rediscovers the many
varieties of daily life, in a story about living life to its fullest –
because any of us can die at any moment. Call # 741.5 Moon
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Last updated October 30, 2011 |