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California Bookwatch

Volume 6, Number 7 July 2011 Home | CALBW Index

Table of Contents

Reviewer's Choice Education Shelf Mystery/Suspense Shelf
Travel Shelf Literary Shelf Cookbook Shelf
Reference Shelf Military Shelf Audiobook Shelf
Social Issues Shelf Photography Shelf American History Shelf
World History Shelf Business Shelf Computer Shelf
Science Shelf Environmental Studies Shelf Self-Help Shelf
Buddhist Studies Shelf Metaphysical Studies Shelf Pets/Wildlife Shelf
Architecture Shelf Art Shelf Psychology Shelf
Health/Medicine Shelf Fantasy/SciFi Shelf Sports Shelf
Women's Studies Shelf Needlecraft Shelf Christian Studies Shelf
Philosophy Shelf Theatre/Cinema Shelf Music Shelf
Biography Shelf Gardening Shelf Political Science Shelf
Nautical Shelf Fiction Shelf Islamic Studies Shelf
Crafts Shelf California Shelf  


Reviewer's Choice

Creating Cohousing
Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett
New Society Publishers
Box 189, Gabriola Island
BC, Canada, VOR 1XO
9780865716728, $32.95, www.newsociety.com

CREATING COHOUSING: BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES explores a type of housing that fosters both independence and community connections, and is written by the team that wrote the original 'cohousing bible'. Illustrations, applied real-life examples, and discussions of cohousing options cover all the basics, from how to get a group off the ground and obtain housing financing to handling cars, residency issues, and more. Case studies of different communities throughout Europe and North America provide concrete examples of issues and success stories.

Chicken and Egg
Janice Cole
Chronicle Books
680 - 2nd St., San Francisco CA 94107
9780811870450, $24.95, www.chroniclebooks.com

CHICKEN AND EGG: A MEMOIR OF SUBURBAN HOMESTEADING WITH 125 RECIPES focuses on three urban hens and the dishes they inspire, offering insights on how the author learned to raise chickens in her urban yard in St. Paul, Minnesota. From buying a coop to handling the eggs, this memoir adds recipes such as Morning Eggs on Mushroom-Bacon Hash and Brown Sugar Apple Custard Pie, and is a pick for general culinary and urban homeowner collections alike.

Today We Are Rich
Tim Sanders
Tyndale House Publishers
351 Executive Drive
Carol Stream, IL 60188
9781414339115, $19.99, www.tyndale.com

Today We Are Rich offers lessons author Tim Saunders learned from his grandmother on motivation and achievement, and teaches how to build a positive mental mind-set and how to use choices to create momentum and build confidence throughout one's lifestyle. The author teaches these basic principles with thousands of people yearly and has seen them turn lives around and drive careers: this gathers his total-confidence principles and shows how they can apply to real life in this recommendation for business and general collections alike!

How Did You Get This Number: Essays
Sloane Crosley
Riverhead Books
c/o Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
9781594485190, $15.00, www.riverheadbooks.com

How Did You Get This Number: Essays provides a series of witty social observations and misadventures that presents her world travels and funny encounters with all kinds of people. From her furnishing an apartment via a black market deal with a shady luxury home furnishings employee to spinning the globe to locate a travel destination to the 'worst stingray pet ever', this makes for an outstanding collection of vignettes perfect for any general lending library.

Solace in So Many Words
Ellen Wade Beals, Editor
Weighted Words
c/o Hourglass Books
387 Northgate Rd., Lindenhurst, IL 60046
9780972525466, $20.00, www.hourglassbooks.com

Solace in So Many Words offers an anthology seeking to define the nature of solace, and offering a collection of literary reflections on what solace means and how to find it. Faced with her own overwhelming need for solace, she called for writings on what solace means and how to find it, contacting her favorite authors and advertising for works. The result blends poetry, essays and fiction by over fifty writers - some notable such as Philip Levine and Antler, others lesser-known. A powerful literary collection, this is a pick for health and literature collections alike!

Savvy Auntie
Melanie Notkin
William Morrow & Company
c/o HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299
www.williammorrow.com
9780061999970, $24.99, www.harpercollins.com

SAVVY AUNTIE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR COOL AUNTS, GREAT-AUNTS, GODMOTHERS, AND ALL WOMEN WHO LOVE KIDS covers all kinds of topics and tips for aunts, from how to develop quality playtime with a niece or nephew to supporting a new mother and understanding the influential roles aunts have on a child's life. Packed with guidelines and examples of successful Aunthood, SAVVY AUNTIE is a wonderful survey any general-interest collection will find a popular pick.

Rush and Philosophy
Jim Berti and Durrell Bowman, Editors
Open Court
70 East Lake St. #300, Chicago IL 60601
9780812697162, $19.95, www.opencourtbooks.com

Rush and Philosophy: Heart and Mind United adds another volume to the Popular Culture and Philosophy series and provides A fine survey of the rock group Rush and its ongoing popularity. Rush's political, social and religious observations and its consideration of social change and ideals makes for chapter packed with concert experiences, insights, and links to modern philosophical thought. Any collection strong in modern music groups and lasting connections to social philosophy will find this an involving, revealing survey.

The Internet is a Playground
David Thorne
Tarcher
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014-3658
9781585428816, $14.95, www.penguin.com

The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius provides a collection of articles and e-mails gathered from the author's online black humor site which attracts more than four million visitors monthly, and is best known for the 'Missing Missy' dialogue about a lost cat. It consists of hilarious e-mail correspondences that have seemingly prompted recipients to near-suicide (or violence at the least) and chatty commentary about everything from items for sale to items lost. A wonderful, hilarious read, this should be in the humor section of any lending library.

Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues
Bill Moyers
The New Press
38 Greene St., New York NY 10013
9781595586247, $29.95, www.thenewpress.com

Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues provides a fine guide to the debates, modern discussions, and journalistic analysis of today's modern political climate, and is a pick for political, social issues and general lending libraries alike. Any collection strong in media and current affairs will find this captures the past three key years in American daily life and politics, introducing ideas that matter today on a range of topics. Extensive new commentary from Bill Moyers offers a fine guide to debates, cultural currents and the people who have shaped our modern democracy.

The Five Ways We Grieve
Susan A. Berger
Trumpeter
c/o Shambhala
300 Massachusetts Ave, Boston MA 02115
9781590308998, $17.95, www.shambhala.com

The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing After the Loss of a Loved One goes beyond the commonly held theories of grief to explore personal growth, offering recommendations based on five different ways of grieving. Readers can identify one of the types and use this to find ways of understanding the loss and how to live through it. From spirituality to ways of memorializing the loved one, this offers an outstanding survey recommended for any general or psychology holding.

Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds
Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger
Visible Ink Press
43311 Joy Road #414, Canton MI 48187-2075
9781578593330, $19.95, www.visibleink.com

Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds investigates all kinds of alien sightings, from Roswell to spacecraft and accounts of interstellar cooperation, and is a recommendation for new age and general lending collections. It comes from a paranormal researcher who has written thousands of books and articles on the mysterious, and examines a range of otherworldly encounters from eyewitness accounts of extraterrestrial beings working with human scientists to abductions. Over 300 examples of alien encounters and conspiracies pack this fine survey!

Black Genesis
Robert Bauval & Thomas Brophy, PhD
Bear & Company
c/o Inner Traditions
One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767
9781591431145, $20.00, www.bearandcompanybooks.com

BLACK GENESIS: THE PREHISTORIC ORIGINS OF ANCIENT EGYPT provides a fine survey building upon extensive studies of the past four decades and the authors' own archaeostronomical and hieroglyphic research, and shows how the early Black culture held a sophisticated grasp of astronomy and had advanced art, trade and spiritual lives. These 'star people' were the true founders of ancient Egyptian civilization and this book requires their history and place in world civilization's development. Any new age collection, in particular, will find this packed with revelations!

The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra
Georg Feuerstein
Shambhala
300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
9781590308790, $39.95, www.shambhala.com

The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra packs in over 2,500 entries on the history, philosophy and practice of yoga and tantra, describes the major and minor and scriptures, and offers detailed discussions of the different forms of yoga and the gods and goddesses of Tantric tradition. Ancient scripts and modern insights are arranged in an encyclopedia format written to inform the lay reader, making for an excellent basic yoga reference for new age and general collections alike!

The Nature Principle
Richard Louv
Algonquin Books
225 Varick St., New York NY 10014
9781565125810, $24.95, www.algonquin.com

THE NATURE PRINCIPLE: HUMAN RESTORATION AND THE END OF NATURE-DEFICIT DISORDER delivers a powerful call to action for adults mired in technology and unaware of how human capabilities may be enhanced by nature. Research and anecdotes blend with personal stories to identify seven basic concepts that can help us reshape our lives and communities, and maintains that the 21st century will be the era of human restoration in the natural world. General and science libraries alike will find this a passionate, involving call for more connections between humans and the natural world.


The Education Shelf

Collaborate, Communicate & Differentiate!
Wendy W. Murawski and Sally Spencer
Corwin Press
2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
9781412981842, $34.95, www.corwin.com

Collaborate, Communicate & Differentiate provides teachers and special education classrooms with a fine survey of how to educate students in general education equally, across the board, and is a pick for any college-level educator's collection. It provides easy strategies for daily tasks ranging from communicating with families to co-teaching and planning differentiated instruction. Case histories, reproducible forms, points to share with administrators, and a companion website make this a powerful teacher's tool.

Schools in the Forest
Denis Heyck
Kumarian Press
c/o Stylus Publishing
Box 605, Herndon, VA 20172-0605
9781565493506, $24.95, www.kpbooks.com

Schools in the Forest: How Grassroots Education Brought Political Empowerment to the Brazilian Amazon documents how the Brazilian government aggressively developed the Amazon and provides a history of Projeto Seringueiro, a radical educational experiment based on the ideas of Paulo Freire designed to bring literacy to the rubber tappers who were at the mercy of the developers. It provides a history of the project and shows how the rubber tappers succeeded in forming different alliances that benefitted all, and is an invaluable pick for education and Latin American collections alike!

The New Digital Shoreline
Roger McHaney
Stylus Publishing
Box 605, Herndon, VA 20172-0605
9781579224608, $29.95, www.styluspub.com

The New Digital Shoreline: How Web 2.0 and Millennials Are Revolutionizing Higher Education offers a fine survey of the complex effects of Web 2.0 on higher education, documenting forces that educators need to know about to modify interactions with students and peers. From understanding how the population of the new Web is different with different expectations to understanding the new mind-set of Web 2.0, this is packed with details supporting a reinvention of higher education to meet these new perspectives - a support which goes beyond just adding new technology to the learning mix. Higher education collections must have this new approach!

Come and Play
Aerial Cross
Redleaf Press
10 Yorkton Court, St. Paul MN 55117
9781605540221, $29.95, www.redleafpress.org

Education collections reaching early childhood teachers will find COME AND PLAY fine key to promoting productive play. From five common play challenges to finding tools to support these challenges plus help a child's overall learning, this pairs purposeful activities and ideas with individual play plans that discuss how play may be managed for optimum results, making this a pick for any early education collection.

Individualized Autism Intervention for Young Children
Travis Thompson
Brookes Publishing
Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624
1598571737, $29.95, www.brookespublishing.com

Individualized Autism Intervention for Young Children is a pick for educator and health collections alike, discussing two different approaches to use with young children with autism and helping professionals consider two competing behavioral models to respond to an autistic child's individual needs. This approach was developed by one of the nation's leading experts on autism and provides a fine set of practical tools and case studies to thoroughly teach and understand the different approaches.

The Insider's Guide for High School Students
Tim Healey and Alex Carter
Vandamere Press
Box 149, St. Petersburg, FL 33731
9780918339751, $11.95, www.vandamere.com

The Insider's Guide for High School Students provides 9th-year students with a basic key to success in high school and beyond, and is a pick for middle to high school collections alike. It imparts an organizational plan for success and shows students how to develop a focus on goals, offering advice on everything from obtaining good grades to becoming involved in school activities. A fine primer, this will appeal to goal-oriented students.


The Mystery/Suspense Shelf

The Worst Thing
Aaron Elkins
Berkeley Prime Crime
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014
9780425240991, $25.95, www.penguin.com

THE WORST THING presents one Bryan Bennett, who has the perfect job designing hostage negotiation programs, especially as he doesn't deal directly with kidnappers or their victims. His own past trauma in that arena has led to nightmares and a fear of enclosed spaces - a fear challenged by a request for him to fly to Iceland to teach a kidnapping seminar. An unexpected development leads to his deepest nightmare in this riveting mystery, perfect for any general lending library looking for a different theme and presentation.

The Wedding Shawl
Sally Goldenbaum
NAL
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014
9780451233196, $24.95, www.penguin.com

The Wedding Shawl: A Seaside Knitter's Mystery offers the fifth book in the author's national bestselling knitting mystery series and features a network of Massachusetts knitters who stitch and sleuth together. Here Izzy is about to be married and the Knitters are helping her knit a beautiful wedding shawl. When a wedding party member is found dead, rumors begin to circulate that could spoil the wedding - and the group - in this fine mystery, recommended for any general mystery collection and especially those seeing popularity with the prior Seaside Knitter's mysteries.

Fade to Blue
Bill Moody
Poisoned Pen Press
6062 E. First Ave., Suite 103, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
9781590588949, $24.95, www.poisonedpenpress.com

FADE TO BLUE provides audiences with a fine Evan Horne mystery in which the jazz pianist takes a gig in Los Angeles where he's offered a job that's more than a teaching job. A spoiled star and a dead photographer involve Evan in a dangerous game and when he wants out, compelling forces cause him to stay - and become even more involved in what evolves to be a mysterious death and blackmail. Mystery fans will find this an outstanding story packed with music and Hollywood references alike.


The Travel Shelf

Motorcycling Alabama
David Haynes
University of Alabama Press
Box 870380
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0380
0817355286, $29.95, www.uapress.ua.edu

Motorcycling Alabama: 50 Ride Loops Through the Heart of Dixie comes from an independent commercial photographer whose previous publications have explored the back roads of Alabama. The rides cover some of the top motorcycling back roads in the state, are accompanied by a section on how to use GPS systems on a motorcycle, and provide in-depth descriptions of cycler's roads accompanied by large two-page color maps and color photos throughout. Any motorcyclist touring the South must have this!

Best Places Vancouver, fifth edition
Kasey Wilson, Editor
Sasquatch Books
119 South Main St., #400, Seattle, WA 98104
1570615616, $19.95, www.sasquatchbooks.com

The fifth updated edition of Best Places Vancouver provides a fine survey of hundreds of places to visit in the area, and comes from locals who present the 'best of the best' recommendations for attractions, shopping, lodging and restaurants. Coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics accompanies revised chapters on Whistler, Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan Valley as well, making this a wide-reaching guide to the area perfect for collections looking at Canada guides for destination travelers.


The Literary Shelf

AfterWord: Conjuring the Literary Dead
Dale Salwak, Editor
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road
Iowa City, IA 52242-1000
1587299895, $19.95, www.uiowapress.org

AfterWord: Conjuring the Literary Dead offers essays with nearly twenty authors who create imagined conversations with a range of British and American authors to consider what would be asked and said in context of an ordinary query. Some 200 years of literary history use the lifelong interest of the contributors to create insights on top literary figures from Samuel Johnson to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. These imaginary interviews are vivid, thought-provoking intellectual and emotional surveys recommended for any college-level literary library!

The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness
Lila Azam Zanganeh
W.W. Norton
500 - 5th Avenue, New York NY 10110
9780393079920, $23.95, www.wwnorton.com

The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness belongs in any literary collection where studies of Vladimir Nabokov are key, and celebrates the writer and his work in a blend of literary criticism and biography. Chapters use Nabokov's greatest works to consider the Russian exile's life and times, using his real and fictional creations as themes by which his intentions and creations are explored. A lively tone and presentation make this a top literary pick!

The Use and Abuse of Literature
Marjorie Garber
Pantheon
c/o Random House
1745 Broadway, New York NY 10019
9780375424342, $28.95, www.pantheonbooks.com

The Use and Abuse of Literature offers a fine query on literature's place in our lives and comes from a Harvard professor who defends the academic study of literature as a reflection and necessity of culture. College-level collections strong in literary criticism and theory will appreciate her assessment of the power of literature and how it makes us happier and more ethical. Her survey defends the academic study of literature and its various approaches and makes for an involving survey perfect for college-level assessment and classroom discussion.

Doing Literary Criticism
Tim Gillespie
Stenhouse Publishers
P.O. Box 11020, Portland ME 04104-7020
9781571108425, $35.00, www.stenhouse.com

DOING LITERARY CRITICISM: HELPING STUDENTS ENGAGE WITH CHALLENGING TEXTS comes from a teacher who has taught in public schools for almost four decades, and who has found literary criticism a powerful tool for helping students understand literature. His explanations of various schools of critical thought embrace historical psychology, biography and other elements and gives each theory its own chapter, with a teacher-friendly overview and history of the approach and how it can lead to better understanding of literary texts. A CD condenses the information on each theory and provides students with keys to using classroom handouts and information.


The Cookbook Shelf

Tupelo Honey Cafe
Elizabeth Sims with Chef Brian Sonoskus
Andrews McMeel
1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106-2109
9781449400644, $29.99, www.amuniversal.com

Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville's New South Kitchen provides recipes from a local Southern cafe that has made its mark by providing innovative new ideas on traditional Southern cuisine. Recipes such as Traditional Appalachian Chowchow, Blackened Catfish with Sunshot Salsa and Candied-Ginger Cornbread Dressing provide a powerful set of dishes perfect for any regional American cookery library.

Fresh & Fast Vegetarian
Marie Simmons
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003
9780547368917, $17.95, www.hmhbooks.com

Fresh & Fast Vegetarian: Recipes That Make a Meal offers an outstanding survey covering soups, main dishes, and hearty combinations that make for main supper fare for vegetarians. A centerfold of color photos enhances an innovative collection of dishes ranging from Cumin-Scented Israeli Couscous with Caramelized Cabbage to Twice-Cooked Green Beans with Curried Pecans. Any vegetarian's collection will benefit from this innovative presentation!

You Can Trust a Skinny Cook
Allison Fishman
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
9780470876350, $29.95, www.wiley.com

You Can Trust a Skinny Cook: 140 Recipes That Love You Back comes from a healthy cooking authority who shows it's easy to stay slim and healthy, and who creates a cookbook designed to demonstrate that ease. From eating foods that promote better nutrition and health to producing flavorful variations that don't lead you to believe you're giving up good food for the sake of a diet, this is packed with dishes such as Soulful Chicken Soup, lemony hummus with parsley, and more. Any general lending library will relish this collection!

Northern Hospitality
Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald
University of Massachusetts press
P.O. Box 429, Amherst, MA 01004
9781558498617, $29.95, www.umass.edu/umpress

Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England provides an anthology of nearly 400 historic New England recipes from the 18th to the early 20th century, and goes far beyond the usual perception of the region's fare as being boiled dinners and baked beans. From a history of the region's best-known cookbook authors and their works to regional recipes, this provides receipts in their original textual forms and are accompanied by commentaries to make them more accessible to the modern reader. The 'how to' instructions such as how to cook a turkey or bone a fowl are exceptional as well, making this a pick not just for New England collections, but for any culinary history library.

Big Bowl of Love
Cristina Ferrare
Sterling Epicure
c/o Sterling Publishing
387 Park Avenue South, New York NY 10010
9781402786440, $30.00, www.sterlingpublishing.com

BIG BOWL OF LOVE packs in over a hundred simple recipes perfect for everyday meals and special occasions alike. From starters to main meals and desserts, this comes from a busy professional and mother who wants to spend minutes in the kitchen but produce outstanding dishes. Color photos compliment dishes ranging from Chopped Chicken Salad to Meatballs with Sauce and Beef Noodle Stew. Any general culinary collection will find this inviting.

The Man's Book of the BBQ
Brendan McGinley
Spruce/Octopus
9781846013911, $9.99, www.octopusbooksusa.com

The Man's Book of the BBQ provides a fine celebration of men and barbecues and is a fine man's book packed with humor, photos, and fun. It's a homage to the grill and male involvement with it, following chefs, families, and hilarious situations revolving around the bbq phenomenon. Fun photo presentations pack a hilarious, pocket-sized tote for a perfect gift for any man enthusiastic about grilling.

Cooking for Two 2011
America's Test Kitchen
1933615788, $35.00, www.cookscountry.com

COOKING FOR TWO 2011 takes a year of 'best' recipes and cuts them down to appeal to two-person households, making for a top pick for any couple tired of facing a week's worth of leftovers from family-oriented cookbooks. From two-person tarts such as Zucchini, Tomato and Ricotta Tarts to 'lightened' Fettuccine Alfredo, Chicken Tacos and more, this packs in photos, step-by-step instructions, and sidebars of notes from the Test Kitchen to assure each dish's success.

Milk & Cookies
Tina Casaceli
Chronicle Books
680 - 2nd St., San Francisco CA 94107
9780811872546, $24.95, www.chroniclebooks.com

MILK & COOKIES provides nearly ninety recipes from New York's Milk & Cookies Bakery, pairs them with color photos by Antonis Achilleos, and shares the author's love of cookies and baking from her own bakery, Milk & Cookies. Innovations such as Milk Chocolate-Orange Cookies or Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies makes for a fine collection of cookies perfect for any general lending library!

Okanagan Wine Tour Guide, revised edition
John Schreiner
Whitecap Books
351 Lynn Avenue, North Vancouver, BC, Canada, V7J 2C4
9781770500143, $19.95, www.whitecap.ca

Okanagan Wine Tour Guide offers a revised, expanded edition of a British Columbia tour guide to the Okanagan Valley, internationally acclaimed for its wine industry. Over forty new wineries are provided in this updated survey providing insider profiles of more than 130 wineries in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys. A take-along tote and top reference for any wine buff planning to tour the region!

Wine Faults
John Hudelson, Ph.D.
Wine Appreciation Guild
360 Swift Avenue, South San Francisco CA 94080
9781934259634, $39.95, www.wineappreciation.com

WINE FAULTS: CAUSES, EFFECTS, CURES appears in a slim paperback format with no spine lettering, and thus can become lost on a loaded bookshelf. Despite this omission, this provides an authoritative, comprehensive text from an organic chemist and quality control expert who gives a precise description of wine's flaws, faults, and how to avoid or fix them - and is a top pick for any professional winemaker or viticulture collection. It discusses the difference between flaws and faults, how flavors development, and how wine can be evaluated at different stages of the process providing detailed chemical information in such a way that both layperson and quality control professionals can readily understand.

Authentic Cuban Cuisine
Martha Abreu Cortina
Pelican Publishing
1000 Burmaster St., Gretna, LA 70053-2246
9781589809550, $25.00, www.pelicanpub.com

Authentic Cuban Cuisine pairs color photos with keys to cooking Cuban cuisine at home, and provides step-by-step instructions to presenting classic Cuban dishes such as arroz con pollo, poliche, and flan. Each recipe appears in Spanish and English, with a bilingual index for easy reference when searching for specific dishes. A fine 'must' for any looking for an authentic, home cook's Cuban cookbook and for any ethnic cookery collection!

Comfort Food
Cooking Light
Oxmoor House
PO Box 11095
Des Moines, Iowa 50336-1095
0848734645, $24.95, www.oxmoorhouse.com

Over 200 easy recipes for home-cooked classics lightened up for modern dietary concerns makes for a winning guide for any interested in reproducing comfort foods that are healthier for families. Recipe makeovers for Spinach Fettuccine, Beef Stroganoff, and even coffee cakes and desserts cover the basics of what makes a recipe variation 'light', includes color photos for easy visual reference, and will prove a popular pick for any general lending library.

An Extravagant Hunger
Anne Zimmerman
Counterpoint Press
2117 Fourth Street, Suite D
Berkeley, CA 94710
9781582435466, $26.00, www.counterpointpress.com

An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher offers a sweeping journey through the food writer's life, surveying the roots of her career and how it evolved through the decades to inspire chefs and culinary leaders around the world. M.F.K. Fisher inspired cooks and food fans alike, suggesting food could be enjoyed sensually and providing personal culinary essays celebrating food. Her life and times are captured in a spirited culinary biography highly recommended for any general or culinary collection.

Southeast Asia's Best Recipes
Wendy Hutton
Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Dr., N. Clarendon VT 05759-9436
9780804841665, $24.95, www.tuttlepublishing.com

Southeast Asia's Best Recipes: From Bangkok to Bali pairs fine color photos by Masano Kawana with over a hundred recipes from a writer who has extensive experience as a food writer for Southeast Asia. From Chicken with Mangos and Cashews to Laotian Beef Stew with Asian Herbs, this packs in a host of superior, wonderful dishes and is a top pick for any discriminating Asian cookery collection.

The Food Axis
Elizabeth Collins Cromley
University of Virginia Press
Box 400318, Charlottesville VA 22904-4318
9780813930077, $50.00, www.upress.virginia.edu

THE FOOD AXIS: COOKING, EATING, AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF AMERICAN HOUSES is a recommendation for culinary and architecture collections alike, blending social history with an examination of all areas of home food management, from preparation to cooking to disposal. Her 'axis' discusses the interrelated spaces above and below ground involved in this preparation, and considers how these elements have influenced different forms of residential architecture in the U.S. past and present. House arrangement is used to trace changes in food spaces over the years in this fine survey which includes primary sources on home design and culinary analysis, recommended for any college-level collection strong in architecture and hospitality.


The Reference Shelf

Research on Main Street
Marcy Phelps
Information Today Inc.
143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055
9780910965880, $29.95, www.infotoday.com

RESEARCH ON MAIN STREET: USING THE WEB TO FIND LOCAL BUSINESS AND MARKET INFORMATION presents a unique guide to finding business and market information about places, from countries and cities to census blocks and other localized areas. This focus on location-specific research offers details on how to locate and utilize local sources on the web which offer more depth and detail than a general web search could reveal. Chapters cover everything from uncovering local economics to using social networking sites and company statistics, and make for a powerful research tool for any general or college-level collection.

Polygon Mesh Processing
Mario Botsch, et.al.
A.K. Peters
5 Commonwealth Rd, #2C, Natick, MA 01760-1526
9781568814261, $59.95, www.akpeters.com

Polygon Mesh Processing is for college-level technical collections strong in applied math, computer science, and engineering alike. It offers applications of geometry processing algorithms based on polygon meshes, offering a fine survey of modeling, data input, error removal, mesh creation, morphing and more. Charts and color illustration throughout make this a winning technical review!

Blue Book of Gun Values, 32nd edition
S.P. Fjestad
Blue Book Publications Inc.
8009 - 34th Ave. S., Suite 175, Minneapolis, MN 55425
1936120089, $49.95, www.bluebookinc.com

Any avid gun collector or dealer and reference holdings catering to them must own a copy of Blue Book of Gun Values. The latest 32nd edition is even larger, packing in well over 2,000 pages of accurate information and updated values for antique and modern guns alike. It reflects the latest current information and lists a range of prices for all types of guns, making for a fine, specific key to the latest industry values and trends.

International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies
Graeme A. Hodge, et.al., Editors
Edward Elgar
9 Dewey Court, Northampton, MA 01060
9781848446731, $299.95, www.e-elgar.com

International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies is a pick for legal and college-level science holdings that discusses nanotechnology regulation and provides scholarly assessments from experts around the world. It considers the complex, controversial web of industry, government, and non-government interests involved in the field, exploring how future regulatory trends may evolve and considering how new technologies are governed and managed. Chapters consider rick management, regulatory paradigms, insurance concerns, consumer health and safety, and more in this top reference.

Epub Straight to the Point
Elizabeth Castro
Peachpit Press
1249 - 8th St., Berkeley CA 94710
0321734688, $29.99, www.peachpit.com

Epub Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Applie iPad and Other Ereaders could have been featured in our Computer Shelf section, but is recommended here for its powerful, wider-reaching reference to creating EPUB files suitable for publication. EPUB has become the favored standard for displaying digital text on ereaders: this tells how to use Word or Adobe inDesign files to create such files, how to take advantage of EPUB in ereaders, and how to wrap text and create links to external sources throughout. The basics of adding video to ebooks for the iPad are also included in a fine reference for any library strong in publishing or computers.

A Practical Guide to Outcome Evaluation
Liz Hoggarth and Hilary Comfort
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
22883 Quicksilver Drive, Dulles, VA 20166
9781849050371, $42.95, www.jkp.com

A Practical Guide to Outcome Evaluation offers important keys to evaluating services and is a reference for any involved in commissioning and running projects working with people. From assessing a project's effectiveness and applying for funding to assessing projected outcomes, this shows how to capture and translate evidence for such outcomes and provides a range of case studies supporting techniques, from youth groups and women's refuges to a road safety education program. Business and social services collections alike will find this specific and invaluable.

International Law
Sanford R. Silverburg
Westview Press
2465 Central Avenue, Boulder CO 80301
9780813344713, $55.00, www.westviewpress.com

International Law: Contemporary Issues and Future Developments offers timely essays on the key issues facing international law today and comes from experts in law, political science, and other genres. From the new International Criminal Court to new environmental regulations, this collection offers a survey of the modern international legal world and discusses issues pertaining to universal jurisdiction, and is a top pick for any legal student interested in both classic and new, original writings on the latest issues.


The Military Shelf

Career Diplomacy, second edition
Harry W. Kopp & Charles A. Gillespie
Georgetown University press
3240 Prospect Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007
9781589017405, $29.95, www.press.georgetown.edu

CAREER DIPLOMACY: LIFE AND WORK IN THE US FOREIGN SERVICE comes from authors who each had long, distinguished careers in the foreign service, and provides a fine survey of the US Foreign Service and its career opportunities. From the entrance exam to the changing role of the foreign service in reconstructing fragile overseas locales and fostering cooperation with the U.S. military, this offers the latest changes to affect the service in a newly updated second edition recommended for military and business collections alike.

It Happened On the Way to War
Rye Barcott
Bloomsbury Press
175 - 5th Avenue, Suite 300, New York NY 10010
9781608192175, $26.00, www.bloomsburyusa.com

It Happened On the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace tells of a son who dreamed of following his father's footsteps into military service. At 17 he accepted a full ROTC scholarship in exchange for a four-year active-duty obligation to the Marines, and used sports and health care to develop leaders in a slum when he created an organization for positive change. His powerful story will earn a place on military and social issues shelves alike!

Bombs Away!
John R. Bruning
Zenith Press
c/o Quayside Publishing Group
400 First Avenue North, Suite 300
Minneapolis, MN 55401
9780760339909, $50.00, www.zenithpress.com

BOMBS AWAY! THE WORLD WAR II BOMBING CAMPAIGNS OVER EUROPE is an extensive, in-depth reference recommended for any military collection in general and libraries specializing in World War II events in particular. It covers strategic aerial bombardment in Europe between 1939 and 1945 and documents particular aerial campaigns against Germany and the German use of strategic bombing in Europe. Rare photos - many in color - pack a survey which considers the machines, flyers, and strategy involved, documenting the evolution of air war from its roots in World War I to the campaigns that were led across Europe.

Shifty's War
Marcus Brotherton
Berkeley Caliber
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014-3658
9780425240977, $26.95, www.penguin.com

SHIFTY'S WAR; THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF SERGEANT DARRELL 'SHIFTY' POWERS, THE LEGENDARY SHARPSHOOTER FROM THE BAND OF BROTHERS provides a fine survey of the life of a machinist from a small mining town in Virginia who saved numerous lives on D-Day in Normandy. His sharpshooter skills and leadership - plus his faith - led to heroic actions documented here. Marcus Brotherton spoke with Shifty, his friends and family, and members of his company to create a moving biography of a soldier who acquired his skills squirrel hunting.

US Small Arms in World War II
Tom Laemlein
Osprey Publishing
4402 - 23rd Street, Suite 219
Long Island City, NY 11101-5058
9781849084949, $35.00, www.ospreypublishing.com

US Small Arms in World War II provides a fine photographic portrait of any army at war, features rare images of American small arms in the second world war, and is a 'must' acquisition for any collection strong in vintage guns and military history alike. This covers 14 different small arms types, with photos including at least one soldier and one weapon and providing shots from the front lines and camp life alike. A fine vintage collection of photos celebrates the handheld weapons of their times and is a 'must' for any military history holding.


The Audiobook Shelf

The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues
Harry Harrison
Brilliance Audio
Box 887, Grand Haven, MI 49417
1441881565, $29.99, www.brillianceaudio.com

The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues provides Book 8 in the 'stainless steel rat' series and provides a new caper suitable for newcomers and Rat fans alike. Here Slippery Jim faces robbery gone wrong, an unpleasant execution, and a dubious deal in exchange for his life, in which he must retrieve a missing alien artifact from another planet. Intergalactic adventures result in a pick recommended for any science fiction audio collection, spiced with veteran narrator Phil Gigante's revealing voice!

Fresh Air: Just for Laughs
Terry Gross
Highbridge Audio Books
201 Sixth Street SE, Suite 220
Minneapolis, MN 55414
9781598878974, $24.95, www.highbridgeaudio.com

Fresh Air: Just for Laughs includes interviews with 18 stars from Stephen Colbert and Steve Martin to Tina Fey, Don Rickles, Will Ferrell and more, and provides a powerful talk show presentation of over three hours. Any interested in comedy and the award-winning public radio show will find this a 'must have' acquisition!

Bel-Air Dead
Stuart Woods
Penguin Audio
c/o The Penguin Publishing Group
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
9780142429334, $29.95, www.penguin.com

BEL-AIR DEAD receives a fine reading by Tony Roberts, a Broadway actor who has appeared on stage and films, is twice a Tony nominee, and whose voice spices the thriller set in the Bel-Air district of Los Angeles and revolves around a beautiful woman who needs Stone Barrington's help - and inadvertently brings him in touch with his past. A notorious power broker and a dangerous game make this an outstanding thriller, highly recommended!

Neptune's Inferno
James D. Hornfischer
Random House Audio
1745 Broadway, New York NY 10019
9780307881397, $45.00, www.randomhouseaudio.com

Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal receives a fine, vivid reading by Robertson Dean, who has acted on- and off-Broadway and in theatres around the country and who here highlights an epic account of the offensive against the Japanese during World War II. New interviews with survivors and unpublished eyewitness accounts contribute to a vivid portrait of those who opposed the Japanese, presenting human stories to compliment historical facts. Any military or nonfiction collection will relish this!


The Social Issues Shelf

The Inequality Reader, second edition
David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi
Westview Press
2465 Central Avenue, Boulder CO 80301
9780813344843, $59.00, www.westviewpress.com

The second updated edition of The Inequality Reader is oriented to the introductory college-level student and provides an undergraduate text collecting key classic and modern readings about poverty and inequality and their place in society. This updated second edition offers some thirty new readings, new materials on anti-poverty policies, and new scholarship to make the presentation more relevant. A 'must' for any interested in the social issues of poverty, gender and race!

The Ragged Edge of the World
Eugene Linden
Viking Press
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014
9780670022519, $26.95, www.penguin.com

The Ragged Edge of the World: Encounters at the Frontier Where Modernity, Wildlands and Indigenous Peoples Meet comes from an environmentalist who has spent some forty years exploring issues involving wildlands and modernity. Here he recounts his adventures around the world, from Vietnam where exciting species are being discovered to Borneo and South America. From nature's special challenges to conflicts between humans and animals, this provides a fine survey of the vanishing lines between wildlife and human boundaries and is a pick for any environmental collection or libraries interested in social issues around the world.

The Big Shift
Marc Freedman
Public Affairs Books
250 West 57th Street, #1321
New York, NY 10107
9781586487850, $24.99, www.publicaffairsbooks.com

THE BIG SHIFT: NAVIGATING THE NEW STAGE BEYOND MIDLIFE comes from a social entrepreneur who argues that while we're all getting older, old habits aren't dropping off. Decades are opening up between midlife and old age, offering an entirely new stage of life with new challenges to concepts of aging and living. People who are neither young or old are forming a significant part of the population: THE BIG SHIFT documents this change and discusses the special challenges of handling problems that affect generations differently. A top pick for any social issues collection and many a general lending library!

Addict Nation: An Intervention for America
Jane Velez-Mitchell and Sandra Mohr
Health Communications Inc.
3201 SW 15th St., Deerfield Beach FL 33442
0757315453, $24.95, www.hcibooks.com

Addict Nation: An Intervention for America contends that Americans are being lured into addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol, fast foods, or the Internet. It questions America's future path into a world marked by greed - and considers the possibility that the nation may not just be headed there; it may already be a national reality. The author is an investigative reporter who offers real cases of addicted people with cultural and social observations suitable for high school to general lending libraries.

Give Smart
Thomas J. Tierney and Joel L. Fleishman
Public Affairs Books
250 West 57th Street, #1321
New York, NY 10107
9781586488956, $23.99, www.publicaffairsbooks.com

GIVE SMART: PHILANTHROPY THAT GETS RESULTS provides a powerful assessment of the social sector and patterns of giving, considering how financial and service programs are changing opportunities and creating social impact. The author founded a nonprofit based on helping donors and nonprofits maximize their impact and other ten years has advised hundreds on how to achieve world change. GIVE SMART represents this vision, and is a pick for any social issues collection.

Influenza and Inequality
Patricia J. Fanning
University of Massachusetts Press
Box 429, Amherst, MA 01004
9781558498129, $22.95, www.umass/edu/umpress

Influenza and Inequality: One Town's Tragic Response to the Great Epidemic of 1918 provides an outstanding survey of Norwood, a small community of mostly wealthy residents who lived privileged lives and whose factories attracted immigrant laborers who faced discrimination. When the epidemic struck it hit the immigrant neighborhoods hard - and the town's response enhanced the tragic outcome. This analysis considers how elite groups implement strategies that complicate medical crisis, and makes for a sobering analysis of social behavior patterns.

Mastermind
Richard Miniter
Sentinel
c/o Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson Street, 4th floor
New York, NY 10014
9781595230720, $25.95, www.penguin.com

MASTERMIND; THE MANY FACES OF THE 9/11 ARCHITECT, KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED reveals Mohammed's rise to the top of Al Qaeda and untold details about 9/11 and plots to kill leaders around the world. This new profile considers Mohammed's radical roots and comes from an award-winning investigative journalist who has written the first detailed expose of KSM based on extensive reporting on three continents, thousands of documents, reports from intelligence agencies around the world, and eyewitness accounts. No library strong in terrorist analysis should be without this.

Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed
Howard Gardner
Basic Books
c/o Perseus Books Group
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
9780465021925, $25.99, www.basicbooks.com

Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the 21st Century offers a fine survey of changes in our concepts of these three virtues, offering new insights on them based on modern social and business demands. New challenges include how beauty is judged in light of 'shock value', how we identify right from wrong when morality becomes political, and how truth has been changed by instant news via Internet. Highly recommended for any general or social issues collection!

Copyright and Cultural Heritage
Estelle Derclaye, Editor
Edward Elgar Publishing
P.O. Box 575, Williston, VT 05495-0575
9781849800044, $110.00, www.e-elgar.com

Copyright and Cultural Heritage: Preservation and Access to Works in a Digital World offers a fine pick discussing the preservation of cultural heritage and the Internet's affects upon these efforts. It considers the issues copyright laws raise in the digital world, the solutions it can provide, and explores how current copyright laws from Europe and beyond prevent or help the development of a centralized online repository of culture. Legal reforms, social issues such as access, and more makes this a fine college-level academic pick for legal and social issues collections concerned with intellectual property rights.

To Kill Another
G.J. McAleer
Transaction Publishers
Rutgers-State University of New Jersey
35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway NJ 08854-8042
9781412811316, $49.95, www.transactionpub.com

TO KILL ANOTHER: HOMICIDE AND NATURAL LAW is a pick for any college-level legal history, religion and political collection and offers an assertion that only public authority has the right to intentionally kill. He defends the claim that natural law theorists have developed and argues there must be consequences for the guilty as well as prohibition against killing innocents. Legal and social issues history holdings alike will find this a scholarly argument re-assessing humanitarianism.


The Photography Shelf

Tooth for an Eye
Deborah Luster
Twin Palms Publishers
54 1/2 East San Francisco St., Santa Fe, NM 87501
9781931885966, $75.00, www.twinpalms.com

Tooth for an Eye provides a very oversized presentation (seventeen by fourteen inches) which is the perfect display format for an architectural and cultural display of the city of New Orleans. TOOTH FOR AN EYE explores the city in a different way, creating a photographic archive of modern and historic homicide sites and exploring themes of loss and history in a photo odyssey of New Orleans culture and urban life. College-level arts libraries will welcome this; especially those with specific interests in photography, urban culture, or New Orleans in particular.

Capture
Glenn Rand, et.al.
Rocky Nook
26 West Mission Street, Suite 3
Santa Barbara, CA 93102
9781933952727, $39.95, www.rockynook.com

CAPTURE: DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY ESSENTIALS provides a powerful survey addressing the opportunities and limitations of digital photography, teaching how to make the most of a digital camera and how to work around its limitations. Chapters cover both hardware and photography methods, offering various projects as examples based on tested teaching concepts and tell how exposures become digital and how to manipulate them using a range of methods. Newcomers to digital photography, in particular, will find this a winner!

Studio Lighting Anywhere
Joe Farace
Amherst Media
P.O. Box 586, Buffalo, NY 14226
9781608952984, $34.95, www.amherstmedia.com

Studio Lighting Anywhere tells readers how to take complete control of lighting to produce outstanding images, even in small spaces, and shows how to convert a bedroom, living room or a few square feet to a studio photography space. It's the perfect pick for beginning photographers who want to create studio-quality images under a variety of conditions, and offers techniques for at-home and on-location shoots. From hardware to composition, this covers all the basics and is a pick for professional and general photography libraries alike!

Plate to Pixel
Helene Dujardin
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
9780470932131, $29.99, www.wiley.com

Photography and culinary collections alike will appreciate this specific guide to photographing food. Food photographers will find this is packed with details on using lighting, camera modes, composition and more to create appealing, professional food photography results. Chapters in PLATE TO PIXEL: DIGITAL FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY & STYLING cover lighting bounce challenges, creating a culinary mood or scene, developing an image theme, and more.

Nikon D7000 Multimedia Workshop
Magic Lantern Guides
Lark Books
c/o Sterling Publishing Company
387 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016-8810
9781454701323, $24.95, www.larkbooks.com

Nikon D7000 Multimedia Workshop comes with two full-length, live-action DVDs and tips on how to get the best photos from a Nikon D7000 camera. The blend of video and book approach creates a personal multimedia workshop packed with tips on superior digital photography, and offers Nikon's on expert advice in getting the most from the camera. A top pick for any Nikon D7000 owner!

iPhone Obsessed
Dan Marcolina
Peachpit Press
1249 - 8th St., Berkeley, CA 94710
0321771621, $29.99, www.peachpit.com

iPhone Obsessed: Photo Editing Experiments with Apps comes from a designer-photographer who dedicated an entire year to a series of mobile image experiments. His results appear in this color guide which offers images and coverage of over forty of the best iPhone photo applications. Learn how to use the iPhone to create artistic effects from blurs to vignettes and black and white images using a fine survey filled with step-by-step examples and inspiration!

Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers Using Photoshop
Scott Kelby
New Riders
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0321725549, $49.99, www.newriders.com

Learn how the pros retouch portraits to create clean, natural-looking results with a step-by-step guide to the methods for fixing and finishing portraits in Photoshop. From softening skin and enhancing eyes and eyelashes to sharpening portraits without using complicated masks and changing hair color, this is loaded with helpful 'before and after' shots and keys to simplifying the entire retouching process, and is a 'must' for any semi-pro photographer.


The American History Shelf

Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man
David Remley
University of Oklahoma Press
2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069
9780806141725, $24.95, www.oupress.com

Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man offers a fine historical biography intended to diffuse the murky lines between reality and myth surrounding Kit Carson. From his controversial relations with American Indians and wars he led against them to his actual peaceful life among many Indian peoples and his happy marriage to an Arapaho woman, this provides a very different view of Kit Carson than most, and is a powerful survey of a complicated man's changing life. No American history collection should be without it!

Spirits of Just Men
Charles D. Thompson Jr.
University of Illinois Press
1325 South Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820-6975
9780252078088, $23.95, www.press.uillinois.edu

Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World tells the story of moonshine in 1930s America and narrows the focus to Franklin County, Virginia - well known as the 'moonshine capital of the world'. The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935 is documented here, using oral histories and local archived material to document how the moonshine trade operated and how it made an income for struggling farmers during the Depression years. American history holdings will find this a rich presentation of moonshine politics, history, and social issues.


The World History Shelf

Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder
Basic Books
c/o Perseus Books Group
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
9780465002399, $29.95, www.basicbooks.com

BLOODLANDS: EUROPE BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN is a key acquisition for any serious world history collection, whether it be at the college level or the general history library. It connects the aims and strategies of Hitler and Stalin with the crimes their regimes committed to offer a new view of the mass killings in Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945, comparing Soviet and Nazi regimes and adding the perspectives of victims. It comes from a scholar of Eastern Europe and an expert on Russia, Germany and Jewish life, and provides a unique in-depth survey.


The Business Shelf

The Branded Mind
Erik Du Plessis
Kogan Page
1518 Walnut St. #1100
Philadelphia, PA 19102
9780749461256, $34.95, www.koganpage.com

THE BRANDED MIND: WHAT NEUROSCIENCE REALLY TELLS US ABOUT THE PUZZLE OF THE BRAIN AND THE BRAND provides a fine survey of how neuroscience research affects market research techniques, and how it can learn from established business routines. From how different parts of the brain interact and how culture influences our lives to the latest theories on consumer behaviors, this explores recent studies and findings in both neuroscience and business, making this a pick for both types of college-level collections.

6 Secrets to Startup Success
John Bradberry
Amacom
1601 Broadway, New York NY 10019-7420
0814416063, $21.95, www.amacombooks.org

6 Secrets to Startup Success: How to Turn Your Entrepreneurial Passion into a Thriving Business provides a fine formula for success based on the author's years of studying the downfalls of promising new business ventures. This resulted in identifying a pattern called the 'passion trap': a pattern that leads to entrepreneurial blindness and wrong emotional attachments to business ideals. Chapters illustrate this common pitfall and offer keys to overcoming it.

The Wizard of Lies
Diana B. Henriques
Times Books
c/o Henry Holt & Company
175 - 5th Avenue, New York NY 10010
9780805091342, $30.00, www.henryholt.com

THE WIZARD OF LIES: BERNIE MADOFF AND THE DEATH OF TRUST comes from a New York Times financial reporter who is the only journalist to have interviewed Madoff twice in person. Each interview lasted more than two hours and is enhanced by her extensive research and reporting and scrutiny of over a hundred original interviews and thousands of pages of government documents and court filings. Nearly every detail of Madoff's Ponzi scheme is outlined in a fine in-depth survey recommended for any serious business collection.

How to Make Money Using Etsy
Timothy Adam
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
9780470944561, $19.95, www.wiley.com

How to Make Money Using Etsy: A Guide to the Online Marketplace for Crafts and Handmade Products documents the rise of an internet crafts-selling marketplace and offers solid techniques from successful sellers. Any who produce crafts and have dreamed of selling them online will find this a fine survey packing in blogger interviews and tips from the top Etsy sellers. A 'must' for any internet sales collection!

Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail
Caitlin Kelly
Penguin Portfolio
c/o Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson Street, 4th floor
New York, NY 10014
9781591843801, $25.95, www.penguin.com

Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail tells of the author's part-time job at the North Face - and how she discovers the hard realities of holding a retail job. From physical pressures to handling corporate bureaucracy, Caitlin Kelly is in the perfect place to analyze the pitfalls of the retail sales system, offering not only personal experience but keys retailers can use to alter how they treat employers. A find blend of autobiography and business insights from the retail sales floor makes this a pick for general and business holdings alike.

Scenario Planning in Organizations
Thomas J. Chermack
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
235 Montgomery St., Suite 650
San Francisco CA 94104-2916
9781605094137, $34.95, www.bkconnection.com

Scenario Planning in Organizations: How to Create, use and Assess Scenarios provides an in-depth survey of the scenario planning process, discussing the evolution and foundations of scenario planning and its connections to learning, decision-making and mental model theory. The focus is on developing and applying scenarios once constructed, and uses a case study based on a real scenario project to outline a five-phase planning system. In-depth business collections will find this a fine assessment.

Human Resources, third edition
Richard G. Renckly
Barron's
250 Wireless Road, Hauppauge, NY 11788
0764143182, $18.99, www.barronseduc.com

The third updated edition of HUMAN RESOURCES pairs details on employment policies with keys to human resources responses for small-to-medium business pursuits, emphasizing daily operations and analyzing common problems. From employee wage and salary guidelines to job descriptions, policies, benefits and equal employment opportunity laws, this is packed with business savvy and a pick for any general business collection.

The International Handbook of Electronic Commerce, revised edition
Dr. Jae K. Shim
Global Professional Publishing
c/o Stylus Publishing
22883 Quicksilver Drive
Sterling, VA 20166-2012
9781906403447, $64.00, www.styluspub.com

The revised edition of The International Handbook of Electronic Commerce covers all aspects of electronic commerce and is a business library pick designed to help managers implement and update electronic commerce in a business. The focus is on a 'how to' guide providing extensive examples of typical real-world applications. Tools and techniques illustrated by these examples can be easily adopted or modified to suit a company's needs and includes checklists, exhibits, and step-by-step instructions for implementation. A 'must' for any serious move towards e-commerce applications.

On Change
Harvard Business Review
c/o Harvard Business School Press
60 Harvard Way, Boston MA 02163
9781422158005, $24.95, www.hbr.org/books

HBR'S 10 MUST READS: ON CHANGE represents a culling of literally hundreds of articles on the topic. The Harvard Business Review's best are gathered here and cover all basics of business change, from establishing a sense of urgency and mobilizing commitment to making radical, quiet changes and understanding the underlying reasons why people won't change. It's a top pick for any collection strong in business change and opportunity.


The Computer Shelf

The Art of Computer Programming Volume 4A
Donald E. Knuth
Addison Wesley
Addison Wesley
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0201038048, $74.99, www.informit.com/aw

The Art of Computer Programming Volume 4A: Combinatorial Algorithms Part 1 offers a new addition to the multivolume college-level technical series on computer programming, and is a 'must' for any considering the entire course of programming taught by the series. The first volume began with basic programming ideas, the second offered a complete introduction to seminumerical algorithms, the third offered a survey of classical computer techniques for sorting, and this focuses on combinatorial algorithms, introducing techniques that allow computers to handle large problems. This extends and refines the prior volumes and stands as well alone as in the set.

Learn You A Haskell for Great Good!
Miran Lipovaca
No Starch Press
38 Ringold St., San Francisco CA 94103
9781593272838, $44.95, www.nostarch.com

Learn You A Haskell for Great Good! provides a hilarious guide to this complex computer language and provides illustrations and useful example codes to teach the basics of a difficult program. From basic syntax and type classes to applicative functors, monards and more, this covers hierarchical modules, data types, applicative laws, and more and is a top beginner's guide to Haskell and a 'must' for any computer collection.

JavaFX: A Beginner's Guide
J.F. DiMarzio
McGraw-Hill
c/o The McGraw Hill Companies
Two Penn Plaza, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10121-2298
0071742417, $40.00, www.mhprofessional.com

JavaFX: A Beginner's Guide explains the technology behind JavaFX and tells how to install the development environment and tools, teaching the basics of using it to develop desktop, browser and mobile applications. From animations to creating custom modes, this offers a fast-paced tutorial filled with hands-on exercises and keys to fast, easy learning. Libraries specifically interested in Java developer's tools will find this a winning approach filled with real-world examples and applied tools.

Outsmarting Google
Evan Bailyn with Bradley Bailyn
Que
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0789741032, $24.99, www.quepublishing.com

OUTSMARTING GOOGLE: SEO SECRETS TO WINNING NEW BUSINESS provides a specific set of breakthrough Google site optimization techniques from a leading world authority on SEO, and offers new high-profit SEO solutions based on modern approaches. From five core SEO ingredients to choosing the best keywords and building site trust and relevance, this is packed with techniques for producing paying customers and offers the latest insights on developing trends in computer search technology. Business and computer collections alike will find this a winning presentation!

Building the Mobile Internet
Mark Grayson, Kevin Shatzkamer, Klaas Wierenga
Cisco Press
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
1587142430, $40.00, www.ciscopress.com

Building the Mobile Internet offers a fine survey of computing technologies shaping the future of mobile applications, and is a recommended pick for programmer and developer collections especially interested in mobility. Three leading mobility architects and implementers from Cisco present knowledge about the trends and user expectations that will fuel tomorrow's market, identifying common mobility challenges and explaining today's latest techniques for building mobility into the Internet.

Murach's ASP.NET 4 Web Programming with VB 2010, fourth edition
Anne Boehm
Mike Murach & Associates
4340 North Knoll Avenue, Fresno, CA 93722
9781890774608, $54.50, www.murach.com

The fourth updated edition of ASP.NET 4 Web Programming with VB 2010 is a 'must' for any collection catering to developers working with ASP.NET 4. It provides a review of essentials in a manner designed to get the user up to speed fast, teaches the basics of using SQL and object data sources, and provides a format packed with black and white screen shots, charts and examples to help developers using Visual Basic learn to develop web applications using ASP.NET.

Agile Web Development with Rails, fourth edition
Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, et.al.
Pragmatic Programmers
Box 293325, Lewisville, TX 75029-3325
9781934356548, $43.95, www.pragprog.com

Agile Web Development with Rails appears in its fourth updated edition to provide Rails 3 users with a fine classic reorganized to be even more useful to developers new to Ruby and Rails. Technical computer collections appealing to these developers will find this combines Rails 3 and Ruby 1.9 to bring hundreds of improvements, from new APIs to new performance enhancements. More information is added to this fourth updated edition to explain key concepts and teach the latest Rails best practices.

DTrace
Brendan Gregg and Jim Mauro
Prentice Hall
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0132091518, $54.99, www.informit.com/ph

DTRACE: DYNAMIC TRACING IN ORACLE SOLARIS, MAC OSX AND FREEBSD provides a fine survey of DTrace, a feature that change the way operating systems are debugged, and provides systems operators and programmers with all the keys to using DTrace in any supported UNIX environment. Key experts in the DTrace community offer plenty of real-world examples and document numerous commands and downloadable D scripts in this top pick for any developer's technical collection.

101 Windows Phone 7 Apps V. 1
Adam Nathan
Sams
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0672335522, $59.99, www.informit.com/sams

101 Windows Phone 7 Apps V. 1: Developing Apps 1-50 packs in complete code and assets for each featured app, provides full color screen shots, and is a 'must have' for any developer's library. It provides the first in a projected multi-volume extensive reference, teaching how to learn from 50 apps that have already been tested, and showing how each app can make a big difference in Windows Phone 7. From building kid-themed versions to creating unique apps, this leads developers through tested basics so they can get to the heart of creative development winners. Highly recommended for any advanced Windows Phone 7 apps developer and professional collections catering to them!

Step By Step HTML5
Faithe Wempen
Microsoft Press
c/o O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein, Hwy N.
Sebastopol, CA 95472-2811
9780735645264, $34.99, www.microsoft.com/mspress

Step By Step HTML5 is an excellent survey for any who would develop HTML5 programming skills, and includes practice files and an online edition of the book. Numbered steps, screenshots to check work, and helpful tips offer skills-building sessions and practice files that teach all the basics and move into more complicated projects from adding graphics and sound to rendering visual images. Any basic computer programming collection needs this!

Search Engine Optimization Secrets
XDanny Dover with Erik Dafforn
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
9780470554180, $34.99, www.wiley.com

Intermediate to advanced SEO engineers will find this a fine introduction to understanding search engine optimization like a pro. From making money from SEO consulting and choosing the right troubleshooting tools for common SEO problems to fixing search engine penalties and using alternative engines, this tells how to gain optimal performance from a search engine to improve rankings and drive traffic to specific sites. Two full-length annotated SEO reports help move the SEO experience to the professional level in this top pick for any who would understand superior documentation and real-world applications.

iPad 2: The Missing Manual
J.D. Biersdorfer
O'Reilly
1005 Gravenstein Hwy North, Sebastopol CA 95472
9781449301736, $24.99, www.oreilly.com

If you own an iPad 2 and want all the best information on tweaking and customizing it, this is the book for you! It packs in keys to building a media library, sharing music and movies, connecting online and using the Safari browser, placing video calls and more, and teaches the basics of undocumented tricks and workarounds. A top pick for any computer collection!

Building European Spatial Data Infrastructures, second edition
Ian Masser
ESRI Press
380 New York St., Redlands, CA 92373-8100
9781589482661, $34.95, www.esri.com

The second updated edition of Building European Spatial Data Infrastructures provides a fine revised edition of a reference for geographic information system professionals, and provides a basic understanding and application of SDI concepts. It examines the framework for EU community member states and the process involved in SDI development and implementation, considering how collaborative projects are developed and including case studies to show how different European organizations are working to maximize access to GIS data through SDIs. College-level reference collections strong in GIS data applications need this.

The Web Designer's Guide to IOS Apps
Kristofer Layon
New Riders
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0321732987, $39.95, www.newriders.com

The Web Designer's Guide to IOS Apps: Create iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad Apps with Web Standards covers HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript and teaches how to download and install free software for creating IOS apps using NimbleKit. Designers who know some Java, HTML and CSS receive keys to combining these with an Objective-C framework, and learn how to enhance app designs and build a foundation for designing web apps that can be delivered to smartphones and mobile devices alike. From text to audio and video content, this is packed with projects and applications.

How to Get Your Message Out Fast & Free Using Podcasts
Kevin Walker
Atlantic Publishing
1405 SW 6th Avenue, Ocala, FL 34471-0640
9781601381200, $24.95, www.atlantic-pub.com

How to Get Your Message Out Fast & Free Using Podcasts comes from thousands of hours interviewing hundreds of successful podcast masters, and provides a series of tested secrets and ideas to using podcasts to drive business to a website. From developing cost-effective campaigns and marketing to considering different hosting options, open-source software, and working within the public domain, this comes packed with specific keys to success and is a 'must' for business and computer holdings alike.

Android for Work
Marziah Karch
Apress, Inc.
233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013
9781430230007, $29.99, www.apress.com

ANDROID FOR WORK: PRODUCTIVITY FOR PROFESSIONALS teaches how to use Android phones for daily work productivity and covers all the basics of the Android smartphone environment, from choosing an Android phone to managing email, locating specialized apps for different professions, and using it to collaborate with coworkers. Chapters cover everything from tethering and creating portable hotspots to social media and microblogs, packing in the basics for any using the Android for the first time. Business and computer collections will find this a winner.

Introduction to Game AI
Neil Kirby
Course Technology
20 Channel Center St., Boston MA 02210
1598639986, $39.99, www.courseptr.com

Introduction to Game AI provides a fine survey teaching beginning game developers and students how to blend AI into games. From the basics of defining game AI to developing rule-based systems, beginners receive step-by-step instructions and examples in an easy guide simplifying the game AI basics. An accompanying CD includes all the source code needed to complete the projects in this book, making this a pick for any programming collection including game development strategies.

Hands-on Guide to the Red Hat Exams
Damian Tommasino
Pearson
c/o Pearson Technology Group
801 East 96th Street, #300
Indianapolis, IN 46240-3759
0321767950, $49.99, www.pearsonITcertification.com

Hands-on Guide to the Red Hat Exams: RHCSA and RHCE Cert Guide and Lab Manual comes from a leading Linux system administrator and certification expert and tells how to master all kinds of RHCSA and RHCE topics, from system services and user administration to remote access and network troubleshooting. Test knowledge and use downloadable troubleshooting scripts with a guide packed with tutorials and examples from real-world applications, and use the many easy scripts to solve and avoid common problems. Most of all - use this book to ace the Red Hat Exams.


The Science Shelf

Albertus Seba: Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
Albertus Seba
TASCHEN America
107 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012
9783836515832, $39.99, www.taschen.com

The price tag is a bargain for an oversized, weighty book of over 400 pages that comes packed with color natural history images taken from the original 1700s collector's commissioned works. Albertus Seba gathered animals, plants and insects from around the world - many curiosities even for his times and long extinct today - and then commissioned a series of color drawings of them after decades of collecting. His scenic representations were unusual even in his time and especially rare today, making this a powerful survey and 'must' for any college-level science and natural history holding.

Infinite Reality
Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson
William Morrow
c/o HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299
www.williammorrow.com
9780061809507, $27.99, www.harpercollins.com

INFINITE REALITY: AVATARS, ETERNAL LIFE, NEW WORLDS, AND THE DAWN OF THE VIRTUAL REVOLUTION recounts the mystery and reality of the virtual and considers the potential of emerging digital technologies. It considers what emerging computer technologies will mean for the future of human life and society, examining the digital experience and its psychological and philosophical implications for the nature of reality. Ideas for our digital future and virtual reality's pioneering authorities makes for an outstanding survey perfect for computer and social issues collections alike.

The Genesis of Science
James Hannam
Regnery Publishing
One Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington DC 20001
9781596981553, $29.95, www.regnery.com

THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE: HOW THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE AGES LAUNCHED THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION refutes the common notion that scientific advancement was halted during the Middle Ages, and offers proof that there was indeed great progress - not despite the church, but because of it. This history links Christianity to Middle Ages developments in modern science and comes from an author who has devoted his life to studying the history and philosophy of science. His contention that without Christianity science as we know it would not exist makes for a powerful history recommended for science, history and Christian collections alike.

The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning
Victor J. Stenger
Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14228-2119
9781616144432, $28.00, www.prometheusbooks.com

The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us discusses the idea of a universe's 'fine tuning' and the idea that a creator god intent ally calibrated it so that humanity cold evolve. Physicist Victor J. Stenger looks at the evidence supporting this theory and comes to the opposite conclusion, presented here: that observations of science not only show no evidence for God - they actually prove that God does not exist. Spirituality and science holdings alike will find this an intriguing, reasoned argument.


The Environmental Studies Shelf

Weeds
Zachary J.S. Falck
University of Pittsburgh Press
Eureka Bldg, Fifth Floor, 3400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
0822944057, $40.00, www.upress.pitt.edu

WEEDS: AN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA presents a fine history of weeds in American urban environments beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present. Cities provide changing urban environments that are transformed by weeds and local government and citizen groups are committed to eliminating them. But definitions of what makes a 'weed' change, and changes in the environment are producing more robust strains of weeds. A fine documentation of undesirable plants and their natural history makes this a pick for any urban issues or botany collection.

Cascadia's Fault
Jerry Thompson
Counterpoint Press
2117 Fourth Street, Suite D
Berkeley, CA 94710
9781582436432, $26.00, www.counterpointpress.com

CASCADIA'S FAULT: THE COMING EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI THAT COULD DEVASTATE NORTH AMERICA offers a fine scientific examination of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which has generated massive earthquakes over and over through geologic time. Nearly forty major events in the last 10,000 years translates to a monster earthquake about every 400-600 years - and it's due to return any time. From the prospect of a nine or higher quake affecting the entire West coast to the tidal waves it will send overseas, this offers science-based evidence of a pending disaster hitherto unexplored.

Climate Change and National Security
Daniel Moran, Editor
Georgetown University Press
3240 Prospect Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007
9781589017412, $29.95, www.press.georgetown.edu

Climate Change and National Security: A Country-Level Analysis is a recommendation for college-level graduate and undergraduate collections as well as research professionals, and provides a guide to how climate change will affect specific countries around the world. The contributors here provide an overview of issues linked to possible plans of action and uses a range of regional experts to go beyond the hype of climate change and into the realities of short- and long-term security risks.


The Self-Help Shelf

The One-Way Relationship Workbook
Neil J. Lavender, Ph.D. & Alan Cavaiola, Ph.D.
New Harbinger Publications
5674 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609
9781572249097, $21.95, www.newharbinger.com

This self-help guide to managing a relationship with a narcissist identifies this type of relationship - which only goes one way and requires constantly adjusting expectations and behavior to meet standards. Exercises and worksheets in this powerful book were created by noted psychologists who have been researching and working with the self-absorbed for over twenty years, and provide explanations and work-arounds for handling interactions with a narcissist. Psychology and self-help collections need this!

The Money & Spirit Workshop
Brent Kessel, CFP & Spencer Sherman, CFP, MBA
Sounds True
Box 8010, Boulder, CO 80306
9781604070897, $99.95, www.soundstrue.com

THE MONEY & SPIRIT WORKSHOP: A STEP-BY-STEP PLAN FOR ACHIEVING GREATER PROSPERITY & PEACE OF MIND provides a complete workshop for integrating our spiritual and financial lives, pairing eight CDs, 24 reference cards, and a 157-page workbook in a package packed with details and training on money practices that define and improve experience. Two top wealth advisors reveal how to achieve security regardless of money spent, surveying financial archetypes and teaching how to understand your personal relationship with money. By changing underlying myths about poverty and sufficiency, you can change money patterns into more positive paths. Any new age or alternative financial collection should have this!


The Buddhist Studies Shelf

Into the Heart of Life
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Snow Lion Publications
PO Box 6483, Ithaca, NY 14851
9781559393744, $18.95, www.snowlionpub.com

INTO THE HEART OF LIFE uses basic Buddhist teachings and blends them into personal insights and stories from her history, presenting talks, dialogues, and a range of reflections on how life quality and personal fulfillment may be enhanced. More than forty years of engagement with Buddhist practice contributes to a survey of how Buddhist teachings apply to modern life, making this a pick for New Age collections in general and Buddhist libraries in particular.


The Metaphysical Studies Shelf

Be Your Own Shaman
Deborah King
Hay House
Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100
9781401930783, $22.95, www.hayhouse.com

Be Your Own Shaman: Heal Yourself and Others With 21st-Century Energy Medicine provides a fine journey into the world of healing - and maintains that everyone is a natural-born healer born with some degree of paranormal abilities related to the gift. More than just birthright, it's a gift that can be fostered and developed - and master healer Deborah King tells how in BE YOUR OWN SHAMAN, which teaches both Eastern and Western concepts and techniques for healing. It's an outstanding survey recommended for any self-help, new age or alternative health library.

Swami Panchadasi's Clairvoyance & Occult Powers
Clint Marsh, Ed. & William Walker Atkinson
Weiser
c/o Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari
65 Parker st., Suite 7, Newburyport, MA 01950
9781578635009, $16.95, www.redwheelweiser.com

Swami Panchadasi's Clairvoyance & Occult Powers first appeared in 1916 and represented a metaphysical classic by an occultism pioneer who offers training in a range of telepathic talents, from crystal gazing to psychic healing and astral travel. Twenty lessons blend instruction with case histories and exercises and provides readers with a powerful survey recommended for any new age occult collection.


The Pets/Wildlife Shelf

Peterson Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes
Lawrence M. Page & Brooks M. Burr
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003
9780547242064, $21.00, www.hmhbooks.com

Peterson Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes should be in the reference collections of any library strong in fish identification. The guide follows many of Peterson's more famous birding field guides in packing in over 1,000 species of fishes in North America and identifying them. Color illustrations, detailed maps, range information, and natural history supports this brand-new edition, a definitive acquisition.

BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Reproduction and Neonatology, second edition
Gary England and Angelika von Heimendahl, Editors
Wiley
c/o Wiley Professional Trade Group
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
9781905319190, $110.00, www.wileyptnews.com

The second updated edition of BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Reproduction and Neonatology provides practicing vets with a fine survey of general veterinary practice and represents a substantial update from the original title published in 1998. From physiology and endocrinology findings for male and female patients to clinical approaches to infertility, pregnancy diagnosis, and complications, this packs in the latest research and development in the field since the first edition, making it a 'must' for any vet's collection and any technical library catering to vets!

Sandhill and Whooping Cranes
Paul A. Johnsgard
Bison Books
c/o University of Nebraska Press
1111 Lincoln Mall, Suite 400, Lincoln NE 68588-0631
9780803234963, $12.95, www.bisonbooks.com

Sandhill and Whooping Cranes: Ancient Voices Over America's Wetlands comes from an author who has spent nearly half a century observing cranes throughout the United States. His experience here blends with natural history and ecology to consider the sandhill and whooping cranes and their wetlands, blending in the latest details on migration patterns and population trends to explain its lifestyle and place in nature. The author's own ink drawings accompanies a natural history and detailed guide to crane-viewing sites around the U.S. and Canada, making this a pick for any birding collection!


The Architecture Shelf

Arts & Crafts Houses
Steven Paul Whitsitt & Tina Skinner
Schiffer Books
4880 Lower Valley Rd, Atglen, PA 19310
9780764336706, $45.00, www.schifferbooks.com

Arts & Crafts Houses takes a tour of some sixteen restored houses built and decorated in the arts and crafts style, packing in over 300 color photos and providing woodworkers, masons and others with specific views of art and crafts homes inside and out. Accompanying the color photos are discussions of the 'look' of each room and how it functioned in the house. Collections featuring architectural guides will find this of special interest, with its oversized format and photos adequately displaying the best of arts and crafts houses.

In-Laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats
Michael Litchfield
Taunton Press
63 South Main Street, Newtown, CT 06470
9781600852510, $24.95, www.amazon.com

In-Laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats provides an outstanding survey of second dwelling units which are often perfect for two-generation families or adult children still at home. This is the first book to describe these units, showing how to change a single-family house into a property with an independent living space and packing in over 50 floor plans and 200 color photos with architectural details to tell how. Details include how homeowners decided to consider a second unit, and what layouts fit with the properties. An excellent choice for any homeowner's collection!


The Art Shelf

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
Andrew Bolton
Metro Museum of Art
c/o Yale University Press
Box 209040, New Haven CT 06520-9040
9780300169782, $45.00, www.yalebooks.com/art

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is an oversized art collection highly recommended for any college-level arts holding, and is published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute. A preface by curator Andrew Bolton, an introduction by Susannah Frankel, an interview with Sarah Burton, and more accompany oversized pages of the fashion designer's influential clothing and social impact. The most radical designs of his long career are presented here, with critical analysis perfect for any arts or fashion library.

Painting Sunlight & Shadows With Pastels
Maggie Price
North Light Books
c/o F+W Media
4700 East Galbraith Road
Cincinnati, OH 45236
www.fwpublications.com
1440303916, $24.99, www.artistsnetwork.com

Painting Sunlight & Shadows With Pastels offers fine keys to adding light to a painting and comes from a pastel artist who shares techniques for painting beautiful light and reflections. Thirteen step-by-step demonstrations tackle a range of common lighting challenges and provide tips by five different artists who explore styles, approaches, and more. From people to landscapes, this offers concepts demonstrated through pastel but perfect for any medium.

American Paintings to 1945
Sarah Cash, Editor
Hudson Hills Press
3556 Main St., Manchester, VT 05254
9781555953614, $60.00, www.hudsonhills.com

American Paintings to 1945 gathers works from the Corcoran Gallery of Art and pairs an extensive art volume packed with color illustrations with an online component adding exhaustive documentation on individual paintings. It's the first to catalog one of the most detailed collections of historic American paintings in the world, and is a pick for art historians and art libraries interested in the latest research on American painting history. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was America's first art museum, founded in 1869 by a wealthy banker and patron of the arts: this collection represents all art genres and displays the Gallery's long history of collecting and supporting American art. Over ninety annotated essays by prominent scholars in the field provide over a hundred significant works.

The Lure of Painted Poetry
Seunghye Sun
Hudson Hills Press
3556 Main St., Manchester, VT 05254
9781555953645, $50.00, www.hudsonhills.com

THE LURE OF PAINTED POETRY: JAPANESE AND KOREAN ART uses works from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art's holdings and provides a catalog and exhibition concentrating on the classical Chinese poetry that Japanese and Korean artists applied to their own arts. From landscapes to figure paintings, this analyzes themes and provides pages of images to accompany them, making for a fine pick for any ethnic arts or Asian collection.

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Painting, Faux Painting, or Mural Business
Melissa Kay Bishop
Atlantic Publishing
1405 SW - 6th Avenue, Ocala, FL 34471-0640
9781601383327, $39.95, www.atlantic-pub.com

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Painting, Faux Painting, or Mural Business comes with a companion CD-ROM that offers all forms from the book and provides painters and muralists with the basics of how to set up a successful career in mural and faux painting. From buying equipment on a budget to hiring employees and finding clients, this covers all the basics of building and marketing a successful portfolio and is a pick for any arts and crafts or business collection.

Venice in Watercolor
Joe Francisw Dowden
Search Press USA
1338 Ross Street, Petaluma, CA94954-1117
9781844484911, $17.95, www.searchpress.com

VENICE IN WATERCOLOR joins other 'Ready to Paint' guides, offering five step-by-step projects of Venetian scenes and six reusable tracings that can easily transfer to watercolour paper. Tips on techniques and coloring throughout teach how to capture mood, paint realistic landscapes, and reproduce fine lighting effects, making for a top pick for any watercolor artist's how-to collection.


The Psychology Shelf

The Science of Trust
John M. Gottman, PhD
W.W. Norton
500 - 5th Avenue, New York NY 10110
9780393705959, $39.95, www.wwnorton.com

The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples provides the author's new approach to measuring interactive processes in couples to predict the long-term success or failure of relationships. This focuses on 'emotional attunement' which describes the couple's ability to process and move on from negativity: his research and theory show how this attunement can help couples focus on positive traits, and it describes intervention devised to enhance attunement. College-level psychotherapy holdings will consider it a 'must'!

Aspies on Mental Health: Speaking for Ourselves
Luke Beardon and Dean Worton, Editors
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
400 Market St., Suite 400, Philadelphia, PA 19106
9781849051521, $22.95, www.jkp.com

Aspies on Mental Health: Speaking for Ourselves provides a fine survey of adults with AS who speak out about their own experiences of mental health issues, offering tips for others and providing personal experience and insights for friends and mental health professionals alike. Any health collection focusing on Asperger Syndrome element will find this covers everything from work and college problems to handling low self-confidence and misdiagnosis, medication and mental health services. An outstanding survey!

Anti-Semitism: A Disease of the Mind
Theodore Isaac Rubin, MD
Barricade Books
185 Bridge Plaza North #309, Fort Lee NJ 07024
156980446X, $12.95, www.barricadebooks.com

Anti-Semitism: A Disease of the Mind comes from a psychiatrist and author who considers the psychology of bigotry and provides keys to healing anti-Semitic disturbances. Theodore Isaac Rubin maintains anti-Semitism and other prejudices are in fact non-organic mental diseases - and he shows how these emotional illness could be treated through psychotherapy.


The Health/Medicine Shelf

Telemedicine for Trauma, Emergencies, and Disaster Management
Rifat Latifi, Editor
Artech House
685 Canton St., Norwood, MA 02062
1607839970, $139.00, www.artechhouse.com

The latest guide to emergency telemedicine applications provides an in-depth survey discussing the technical and clinical possibilities in the management of trauma and disaster situations using telemedicine and related technologies. From car crashes to regional disasters, this provides college-level health students and professionals in disaster management with discussions on the logistics and safety of telemedicine from experts in the field, and discusses all the major issues practitioner need to understand to help telemedicine function more effectively under crisis situations. A top pick for any professional reference or college library!

Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders Sourcebook, second edition
Joyce Brennfleck Shannon
Omnigraphics
Box 1640, Detroit, MI 48321-1640
9780780811461, $95.00, www.omnigraphics.com

Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders Sourcebook is another solid reference recommendation for any general lending library, providing consumers with the latest research on autism and its physical and psychological ramifications. Updated information about the disorder is provided in a second edition that explains symptoms, assessment, and early interventions. Over fifty chapters review the disorder, its causes, and living with the condition from childhood through adulthood.

Beating Melanoma
Stephen Q. Wang, MD
Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-4363
0801898900, $19.95, www.press.jhu.edu

BEATING MELANOMA: A FIVE-STEP SURVIVAL GUIDE comes from a world-famous cancer expert and provides a slim but key guide for people with melanoma and their families. A step-by-step guide from diagnosis to completing initial treatment discusses options and concern and addresses common questions about treatments and prognosis. Any general lending library and many a health collection needs this!

The Nursing Student's Guide to Clinical Success
Lorene Payne
Jones & Bartlett
40 Tall Pine Drive, Sudbury MA 01776
9780763776145, $32.95, www.jbpub.com

The Nursing Student's Guide to Clinical Success provides a fine resource for nursing students entering clinical education. It provides keys to getting the most out of the clinical side of their education, from special charting options and patient education and interactions to reporting ugly staff encounters or uncovering a patient's sometimes-hidden past. Highly recommended for any nursing student and college-level collections catering to them!


The Fantasy/SciFi Shelf

The Hot Gate
John Ringo
Baen Books
Box 1403, Riverdale, NY 10471
9781439134320, $26.00, www.baen.com

THE HOT GATE offers a fine and dramatic account of the fight to free Earth from alien domination, begun in John Ringo's LIVE FREE OR DIE and concluding here as Tyler Vernon and his troops engage in battle on a galactic level. It's not just Earth that's threatened: it's the entire galaxy in this epic saga of military engagement in space, perfect for any science fiction lending collection.

The Unremembered
Peter Orullian
TOR Books
175 - 5th Avenue, New York NY 10010
9780765325716, $27.99, www.tor-forge.com

THE UNREMEMBERED provides a compelling fantasy adventure story in a world where Than struggles to recall a lost childhood and understand words he feels compelled to utter each time he draws his bow. He lives in Aeshau Vaal, a world where humans strive towards transcendence against perils and where evil threatens all. Fantasy enthusiasts will find this a complex, riveting saga packed with twists, turns, and intrigue.

World of Faerie
Brian Froud
Insight Editions
3160 Kerner Blvd. #108, San Rafael CA 94901
193378413X, $40.00, www.insighteditions.com

This oversized fantasy collection comes from the best-selling co-creator of FAERIES, offering a fine sequel which provides new paintings, watercolors and drawings packed with lavish color details of the faerie world. Brian Froud's images have long been acclaimed and this latest does not disappoint, providing any fantasy reader and art collection with lovely full-page color displays of art paired with Brian Froud's discussions of faerie world ideas, icons and inspirations. It's a top recommendation for any fantasy holding.


The Sports Shelf

The Strength Training Anatomy Workout
Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill
Human Kinetics
Box 5076, Champaign, IL 61825-5076
1450400957, $21.95, www.hkusa.com

The Strength Training Anatomy Workout offers a fine guide to getting the most from a strength training anatomy workout, delivering over 150 color illustrations to accompany over 200 exercises and 50 workouts. Targeted conditioning routines for over 30 sports, including basketball, soccer, track and golf, cover the advantages and disadvantages of each exercise, presents variations, and includes step-by-step color photos with anatomy illustrations. Any sports collection will find this a fine reference!

Running on Empty
Marshall Ulrich
Avery Books
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
9781583334232, $26.00, www.penguin.com

RUNNING ON EMPTY: AN ULTRAMARATHONER'S STORY OF LOVE, LOSS, AND A RECORD-SETTING RUN ACROSS AMERICA provides a powerful memoir perfect for sports and general collections alike, and tells of the story that led to his dramatic run from San Francisco to New York - at age 57. He clocked the third-fastest trans-American crossing and his story tells of road experiences and the rise of his passion in a fine pick for athletes and non-athletes alike.

Patriot Hearts
John Furlong with Gary Mason
Douglas & McIntyre
2323 Quebeck Street, Suite 201
Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5T 4S7
9781553657941, $32.95, www.douglas-mcintyre.com

PATRIOT HEARTS: INSIDE THE OLYMPICS THAT CHANGED A COUNTRY provides a fine Olympic memoir that combines autobiography, sports history, and political insights into the institution of the world Olympics games, and is a recommendation for any sports collection. From negotiations that led to the highest corporate sponsorships in Olympic history to the involvement of political interests and the development of controversial programs and choices, this offers a story about organizing an Olympic event and provides businesses, politicians and leaders with behind-the-scenes insights on what goes on. Any sports and many a general-interest collection will relish this survey!


The Women's Studies Shelf

Run Like a Girl
Mina Samuels
Seal Press
1700 - 4th St., Berkeley, CA 94710
9781580053457, $16.95, www.sealpress.com

RUN LIKE A GIRL: HOW STRONG WOMEN MAKE HAPPY LIVES introduces readers to women who discovered benefits from participating in sports, and she tells women how getting involved in sports changed her life. While this could have been featured in our 'Sports' section, it's reviewed here for its special approach on how women build confidence and how sports can change their lives, offering candid stories of nearly a hundred women. Women's issues collections as well as high school libraries will find RUN LIKE A GIRL a powerful inspiration.

Close Quarters
Capt. Tuuli Messer-Bookman
Schiffer Books
4880 Lower Valley Road, Atglen, PA 19310
9780764336317, $14.99, www.schifferbooks.com

CLOSE QUARTERS: A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO LIVING AND WORKING IN MASCULINE ENVIRONMENTS provides a fine survey to women working and living in masculine worlds, offering first-hand experiences that help women adapt and work within professions where men and women are in close quarters, from law enforcement to construction and the military. From avoiding embarrassing male colleagues to deflecting inappropriate actions, this is packed with practical coping tips.

Vibration Cooking
Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor
University of Georgia Press
330 Research Drive, Athens, GA 30602-4901
0820337390, $19.95, www.ugapress.org

VIBRATION COOKING OR, THE TRAVEL NOTES OF A GEECHEE GIRL appears in its fourth printing and first appeared in 1970 around the time 'soul food' gained popularity. Much more than just a cookbook, this pairs recipes with the author's memoir discussing black women and heritage, recounting her travels in Europe, her encounters with ethnic foods and heritage, and how she eventually learned to cook from ethnic traditions around the world. While this could have appeared either in our culinary or social issues sections, it's reviewed here for its special interest to women's history holdings as well.

Knowing Your Value
Mika Brzezinski
Weinstein Books
345 Hudson Street, 13th floor, New York, NY 10014
9781602861343, $22.95, www.weinsteinbooks.com

KNOWING YOUR VALUE: WOMEN, MONEY, AND GETTING WHAT YOU'RE WORTH uses the author's own triumphs and failures to consider the issues involving a women's career and value in the workplace. Professional women are often overlooked and undercompensated compared to their male counterparts: this considers the roadblocks women face and how sometimes their own choices and behaviors hold them back. Business and women's issues collections alike will find this a powerful addition.


The Needlecraft Shelf

Colorwork Creations
Susan Anderson-Freed
Krause Publications
4700 E. Galbraith Rd., Cincinnati OH 45236
1440212422, $24.99, www.mycraftivitystore.com

COLORWORK CREATIONS: KNIT WOODLAND INSPIRED HATS, MITTENS AND GLOVES tells how to create fine accessories and provides a set of over 30 hats, mittens and gloves that pair traditional Sanquhar knitting motifs with woodland birds and animals. These projects make for quick-knitted gifts and are fine recommendations for any knitting collection!

Flowers, Hearts & Garlands
Liz Jones
American Quilter's Society
Box 3290, Paducah, KY 42002-3290
9781574326482, $26.95, www.AmericanQuilter.com

Flowers, Hearts & Garlands joins others in the 'Applique Masterpiece Series' and offers keys to making an award-winning applique quilt with two easy machine techniques. It uses Liz Jones' distinctive designs to create all sizes of projects, using her technique for quickly free-motion machine basting applique pieces in some 25 flower and 6 garland block patterns. Over forty quilting designs make this a pick for any needlework collection.

Twisted Stitches
Phil Davison
North Light Books
c/o F&W Media
4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati OH 45236
1440309337, $19.99, www.mycraftivitystore.com

TWISTED STITCHES: 30 CORRUPT CROSS STITCH AND EMBROIDERY DESIGNS includes a packet on the back cover with full size fold-out charts of the larger designs herein, so it may not make a general lending library addition - but any modern young needleworker using embroidery or cross stitch will find this an outstanding pick. It uses contemporary designs and 'wicked' pictures ranging from skulls and zombies to barbed wire and insects to impart a modern gothic feel to the embroidery options. Unlike the traditional hearts, flowers and fun designs of traditional embroidery, these darker images will appeal to the younger set with designs for newcomers as well as experienced needleworkers, and will find a home in many a young needleworker's collection as a 'cool alternative' to traditional choices.


The Christian Studies Shelf

The Essential Guide to Catholic Prayer and the Mass
Mary DeTurris Poust
Alpha Books
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014-3658
9781615640751, $16.95, www.penguin.com

The Essential Guide to Catholic Prayer and the Mass tells how to use the Catholic traditions of and approach to prayer and worship to strengthen faith and connections with God through prayer. New approaches to prayer and spirituality focus on saints who have experienced similar challenges, and who offer examples of approaching God in prayer and living the Catholic faith. Catholics will find this a solid, involving approach to making the most of their faith.

Love Wins
Rob Bell
HarperOne
c/o HarperCollins San Francisco
353 Sacramento St. #500, San Francisco CA 94111-3653
9780062049643, $22.99, www.harperone.com

LOVE WINS: HEAVEN, HELL, AND THE FATE OF EVERY PERSON WHO EVER LIVED comes from an unconventional pastor whose controversial re-interpretations of religious ideas reaches 10,000 people every Sunday with a podcast download of his service reaching 50,000. LOVE WINS tackles the divisive themes of heaven and hell - and addresses whether a loving God would send people to a place of eternal suffering. A charismatic leader of Christian principles with a revolutionary new twist to interpretation, LOVE WINS belongs in every Christian collection.

Catholic Engagement with World Religions
Karl J. Becker & Ilaria Morali, Editors
Orbis Books
PO Box 308, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308
9781570758287, $45.00, www.orbisbooks.com

Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study outlines and defends official Roman Catholic teachings on the relationship between Christianity and other religious traditions, studying the history of these issues and their relationships with Catholicism. Scholarly, college-level collections strong in Catholic analysis will find this packed with insights into Catholic relationships to other world religions, with essays considering the Holy Spirit, the historical concept of Christianity and the mission of the Catholic church, elements which allow Catholics in particular to hold fast to the uniqueness of Christianity, and how Islam and other religions understand the Catholic mind-set. Very highly recommended!

The Universal Monk
John Michael Talbot
Liturgical Press
Box 7500, Collegeville, MN 56321
9780814633410, $19.95, www.litpress.org

THE UNIVERSAL MONK: THE WAY OF THE NEW MONASTICS provides a powerful survey written from the author's experience in public international ministry and as founder of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, a new integrated monastic community of different kinds of monks. The latest issues affecting spirituality are analyzed with spiritual and lifestyle answers which promote a more unified vision of a life with God. Pastors and others seeking different options for a modern spiritual perspective will relish this guide!

Missions by the Spirit
Ron Stansell
Barclay Press
211 N. Meredian #101, Newberg, OR 97132
9781594980206, $24.00, www.barclaypress.com

Missions by the Spirit: Learning from Quaker Examples provides a fine survey of Quaker dynamics and spiritual applications, showing how Quakers differ from other evangelicals in carrying out their mission. The Friends were influenced by beliefs about the Holy Spirit's applications to peace, harmony, and the overall human condition - and their modern mission work is presented here in a focus on the core beliefs that are central to their Spirit-directed service. Spirituality holdings will find this a fine, specific survey.

Divinity of Doubt
Vincent Bugliosi
Vanguard Press
c/o Perseus Books Group
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
9781593156299, $26.99, www.vanguardpressbooks.com

DIVINITY OF DOUBT: THE GOD QUESTION argues that the Christian God cannot exist - and offers a close consideration of why a divine being could not be all-good, all-powerful or all-knowing at the same time. It considers and refutes the Free Will idea, and it shows that scripture actually supports the position of no free will, considering a God who knows how people will exercise their will for evil - yet allows it to happen. Observations of other issues from evolution to intelligent design make this a real winner for any Christian or spirituality collection.


The Philosophy Shelf

Reasonable Atheism
Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse
Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14228-2197
9781616143831, $20.00, www.prometheusbooks.com

REASONABLE ATHEISM: A MORAL CASE FOR RESPECTFUL DISBELIEF comes from authors who attempt to introduce civility and rational clarity to the debates between religious believers and atheists, offering an approach that advocates intellectual engagement with respect. The authors present a moral case for atheism, contending it's a moral concern for wellbeing and is driven by moral considerations similar to religious believers. It's an excellent survey for any spirituality collection.


The Theatre/Cinema Shelf

You're Funny!
D.B. Gilles
Michael Wiese Productions
12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111, Studio City CA 91604
9781932907957, $19.95, www.mwp.com

YOU'RE FUNNY! TURN YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR INTO A LUCRATIVE NEW CAREER is recommended for any performing arts or screenwriting library and offers keys to turning an innate sense of humor into a lucrative film or writing career. From what it takes to become a sitcom writer or satirist to doing standup comedy, this offers good definitions, writer's and performer's exercises, strategies for breaking into the industry, and more.

Art of Kung Fu Panda 2
Tracey Miller-Zarneke
Insight Editions
10 Paul Drive, San Rafael CA 94903
9781608870189, $39.95, www.insighteditions.com

Art of Kung Fu Panda 2 packs in over 150 pages of fine art storyboards outlining special effects, concepts, film challenges and successes, and more. It follows the ideas and evolution of scenes and themes in Kung Fu Panda 2, studying the making of the film and including commentary from the producer, director and crew about how the production was achieved. Any collection strong in filmmaking and animated film history needs this outstanding celebration of Kung Fu Panda 2.


The Music Shelf

Songwriting: The Words, The Music & The Money, second edition
Dick Weissman
Hal Leonard Books
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213
9781423484516, $24.99, www.halleonard.com

Songwriting: The Words, The Music & The Money comes with a CD and a DVD featuring two song collaborations and provides a fine second edition surveying the basics of writing song lyrics and melodies. This revised edition contains updated material about placing songs in film and on television and provides details about performing rights organizations, making this a fine survey of the entire collaboration and publishing process.

Not Dead & Not for Sale
Scott Weiland with David Ritz
Scribner
c/o Simon and Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas, 14th fl.
New York, NY 10020
9780743297165, $24.00, www.simonandschuster.com

Not Dead & Not for Sale: The Earthling Papers: A Memoir provides a fine survey by lead Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, who became a front man in his own right and whose drug busts and trips to rehab became headline news. His series of comebacks and eventual reunion with Stone Temple Pilots makes for a hot insider's guide to the rock music scene, exploring his early years, experiences with sex and drugs, complex relationships with family and friends, and much more. Any collection strong in rock music history needs this!


The Biography Shelf

Becoming Teddy Roosevelt
Andrew Vietze
Down East
P.O. Box 679, Camden ME 04843
9780892727841, $22.95, www.downeast.com

Becoming Teddy Roosevelt: How a Maine Guide Inspired America's 26th President tells one William Wingate Sewall, a Maine woodsman who became Roosevelt's mentor and lifelong friend. This offers a fine account of that friendship of men of completely different backgrounds: an unusual association between a lumberman and a politician, and shows how that bond changed Roosevelt and had a lasting impact on the nation's direction. A 'must' for any political or biography collection strong in Presidential histories.

The Next Level
Vernon Turner
Vernon Turner Publishing
bookreviews@vernonturner.com
9780984473618, $16.95, www.vernonturner.com

THE NEXT LEVEL could have been featured in our Sports Shelf section, but is a powerful autobiography that should not be limited to football fan readers alone. It's a personal odyssey and expose that brings to life repressed memories, experiences, and influences that made the author the player he is today, and delves into his mental and physical preparations for his sports skills, pivotal moments in his life and career when his parents died, and more. A gripping account follows his personal and sports evolution in a pick for any lending library strong in autobiographical writings and football.

Bismarck: A Life
Jonathan Steinberg
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10016-4314
9780199782529, $34.95, www.oup.com

Bismarck: A Life provides the first major biography on Bismarck in 30 years, and is a recommended pick for biography and history holdings alike. It provides insights into the psychology and politics of Bismarck's struggles and times, offering a critical portrait that considers his pros and cons alike. College-level collections strong in European and military history will find this is an in-depth coverage packed with insights and revelations.

Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man
Chaz Bono with Billie Fitzpatrick
Dutton
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson St., New York NY 10014
9780525952145, $25.95, www.penguin.com

Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man is Chaz Bono's autobiography and tells of years living as the daughter of Sonny and Cher, in the public and entertainment industry eye. Chaz became a national leader of the LGBT political movement, but still felt something was wrong in life: TRANSITION details a move from female to male and explores the process of transition. It joins only a few others on the topic and focuses on the psychological changes Chaz experienced. Any LGBT collection must have this, as well as many a general lending collection.


The Gardening Shelf

Fast, Fresh Garden Edibles
Jane Courtier
Creative Homeowner
PO Box 38
Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458-0038
9781580115124, $14.95, www.creativehomeowner.com

Fast, Fresh Garden Edibles: Quick Crops for Small Spaces is a pick for urban collections in particular, and offers advice on cutting the time frame from planting a garden to harvesting crops. From growing bumper crops in containers and on windowsills to choosing the quickest, hardiest varieties, this packs in tips and color photos and is a pick for any urban gardening collection.

The Successful Gardener Guide North Carolina
Leah Chester-Davis and Toby Bost, Editor
John F. Blair, Publisher
1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem NC 27103
9780895875150, $19.95, www.blairpub.com

The Successful Gardener Guide North Carolina originated with a newsletter from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension ten years ago, to address the high demand for gardening information across the state. Now this title compiles the best writings from these newsletters, gathering ten years of research-based horticultural information in one volume. North Carolina gardeners will find this an invaluable how-to resource for gardening, from choosing species and cultivars to monthly calendars for the mountains, Piedmont and coastal regions of the state. Any North Carolina gardener and library catering to them needs this!


The Political Science Shelf

The Next American Economy
William J. Holstein
Walker & Company
175 - 5th Avenue, New York NY 10010
9780802777508, $26.00, www.walkerbooks.com

THE NEXT AMERICAN ECONOMY: BLUEPRINT FOR A REAL RECOVERY argues that the best way for us to recover our economic footing is to innovate and create new industries - and it provides nine case studies on how Americans are currently innovating and creating new industries. From locating and boosting the sources of new innovations to a blueprint for fostering new cooperative ventures, this is a key acquisition for any political or business collection.

Catching Our Flag
James E. Rogan
WND Books
marketing@wnd.com
9781935071327, $25.95, www.wnd.com

CATCHING OUR FLAG: BEHIND THE SCENES OF A PRESIDENTIAL IMPEACHMENT is based on the extensive diaries as one of the House managers selected to persecute Clinton, and provides a candid view of the process and why the author voted to impeach him. It provides a behind-the-scenes look at what went on during America's last presidential impeachment and provides an insider's story of politics and power, making this a strong pick for any American political history collection.

Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work, third edition
Shawn Dorman, Editor
Potomac Books
22841 Quicksilver Dr, Sterling VA 20166
9780964948846, $22.95, www.potomacbooksinc.com

Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work provides a fine guide to the Foreign Service and appears in a new third edition to consider over 50 U.S. missions around the world. Profiles of diplomats and their work range from ambassadors to public diplomacy officers and security specialists, cover sample events and encounters, and provide personal reports of the process of representing American interests overseas. Any who would know how an embassy works and how a worker builds a career will find this a fine pick, recommended for military, political and career collections alike.


The Nautical Shelf

Bull Canyon
Lin Pardey
Paradise Cay Publications
Box 29, Arcata, CA 95518
9781929214679, $24.95, www.paracay.com

BULL CANYON: A BOATBUILDER, A WRITER AND OTHER WILDLIFE tells of the sailor author's time at Bull Canyon, which held an abandoned stone cottage fifty miles from Los Angeles and far from the sea he loved. The house held plenty of room to build a boat, an endeavor which would test the couple's skills and abilities and ultimate would lead them to a closer relationship. Any who have followed the Pardey's sailing adventures will find this an involving survey moving from sea to land - and back again.

Cruising Guide to the Virgin Islands, 15th edition
Nancy & Simon Scott
Cruising Guide Publications
Box 1017, Dunedin, FL 34697-1017
9780944428917, $31.95, www.cruisingguides.com

The 15th updated edition of Cruising Guide to the Virgin Islands is a 'must' for cruisers intending to journey to the islands. This edition has been completely re-designed and updated with anchorage charts, more color photos, a free 17x27 color planning chart, and GPS coordinates for every anchorage. With its lay-flat spiral binding and details on marinas and shore-side facilities alike, this is packed with essential cruiser's details perfect for a take-along tote.


The Fiction Shelf

The Pale King
David Foster Wallace
Little, Brown
c/o Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
9780316074230, $27.99, www.hachettebookgroup.com

THE PALE KING provides an unfinished novel: the final work of David Foster Wallace which has been long awaited. Two segments of the book ran in The New Yorker and two in Harper's, helping fuel the fire for this novel: now THE PALE KING is here and uses many twists and turns of plot to provide a thought-provoking read. Any collection which has seen prior enthusiasm for David Foster Wallace - which surely will be any general lending library - will relish this last tribute to his abilities.

Long Drive Home
Will Allison
Free Press
1230 Avenue of Americas, New York NY 10020
9781416543039, $22.00, www.simonandschuster.com

LONG DRIVE HOME provides a fine novel from an author whose first novel became a quick literary sensation, named one of 2007[s most notable books. This second novel tells of a happily married suburban father whose angry impulse causes a death and changes his life. Written in part as a confessional letter, this examines personal responsibility from the view of a father who attempts to explain his actions to his daughter. A vivid account emerges, highly recommended for any lending library!


The Islamic Studies Shelf

The Contemporary Arab Reader on Political Islam
Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, Editor
University of Alberta Press
Ring House 2, University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB, Canada, T6G 2E1
9780888645579, $34.95, www.uap.ualberta.ca

The Contemporary Arab Reader on Political Islam provides a fine compendium blending social, political, religious and ideological ideas that have shaped modern Arab societies - and are little understood in the West. This reader brings together the writings of influential figures in the field of Islamism in the modern Arab world, offering discussions of human rights, globalization secularization, and the impact of the West on the Arab world. Students seeking to understand the politics and culture of Islam will find this compelling at either the high school or college levels.


The Crafts Shelf

Outside the Box Origami
Scott Wasserman Stern
Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Drive
North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436
9780804841511, $19.95, www.tuttlepublishing.com

OUTSIDE THE BOX ORIGAMI: A NEW GENERATION OF EXTRAORDINARY FOLDS offers some twenty whimsical paperfolds ranging from simple to complex. The author began his passion at age fourteen and this book represents three years of work, featuring a strong mix of single-sheet and modular origami models accompanied by photos and diagrams. Both arts and general libraries where origami is of interest will find this a fine pick!

Polymer Pizzazz 2
Kalmbach Books
21027 Crossroads Circle, Waukesha, WI 53186
9780871164261, $19.95, www.kalmbachbooks.com

Polymer Pizzazz 2 includes over twenty projects with step-by-step photography and directions and is a pick for any working with art jewelry. Basic polymer techniques, tools, and supplies offer a range of lovely jewelry projects and are packed with color photos and options for making beads and putting beads together. Any crafts collection will find this a winner!


The California Shelf

Arcadia Publishing
420 Wando Park Blvd.
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
www.arcadiapublishing.com

FILIPINOS IN SAN FRANCISCO (0738581313, $21.99) provides a fine survey of San Francisco's Filipino community history through archived images in a pictorial history perfect for ethnic or San Francisco history holdings. The photos document early arrivals and their stories and traces immigrant experiences and community interactions, and is a 'must' for any California or Filipino history holding. Jennifer Posedel and Stephen Lawton work with the Hercules Historical Society to produce HERCULES (0738574406, $21.99), another fine addition to the 'Images of America' series. It starts with a survey of the explosive manufacturing industry in 1879 which fostered the growth of the small town and offers fine vintage photos documenting the town's rise and many social changes. San Francisco Bay Area holdings, in particular, will want this! Bay Area collections as well as gardening and botany holdings will also want the Western Sonoma Historical Society's SEBASTOPOL'S GRAVENSTIEN APPLE INDUSTRY (0738581739, $21.99), a fine survey of the Gravenstein apple which has provided millions of dollars to the local Sonoma County economy. The story of its European roots to its growth and popularity in California makes for a fine pairing of vintage images from WSCHS and local archives, celebrating the area's history.


James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
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

Diane C. Donovan, Editor & Senior Reviewer
12424 Mill Street, Petaluma, CA 94952
phone: 1-707-795-4629
e-mail: donovan@sonic.net


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