Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - July

FICTION

April in Paris by Michael Wallner

It is the summer of 1943, and Wehrmacht corporal Roth finds himself in Paris, translating SS interrogations of French prisoners. He hates the brutality that follows, but it is preferable to being at the front, isn't it? Wanting to find some measure of escape, he secretly trades in his uniform for a checkered suit and transforms himself into Monsieur Antoine, a Frenchman. In this guise, he meets Chantal, a bookseller's daughter who is also a member of the Resistance: he is enchanted by her, she is suspicious of him. Yet when the SS raid the barbershop where Chantal's fellow activists gather, he proves he isn't her enemy despite his nationality. Then, after a bombing at a brothel that kills high-ranking German officers, Roth is suspected of treason and now the translator is the detainee. As Antoine, he had only wanted to "flee reality." Now, reality is all around him. Actor/screenwriter Wallner describes occupied Paris with all the detail and clarity of a spring day. The reader is sympathetic to the hapless Roth, who, despite his contributions to the Nazi machine, is just a young man looking forward to the end of the war. (Library Journal Review)

MYSTERY

A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi.


In Santogrossi's engrossing, dark debut (winner of the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic contest for Best First Traditional Mystery Novel), the curiously endearing protagonist, Tim Ryder, wakes up one morning to find a dead body on his Palm Springs, Calif., lawn. Ryder, a carpenter, wonders if the murder is connected to testimony he gave against a co-conspirator in a criminal case 30 years earlier, when he did time for a bungled robbery, a misguided attempt to raise money for anti–Vietnam War protests. With the next current-day casualty, the matter becomes more urgent, and even more personal, and Tim is determined to find the killer. On occasion, Santogrossi veers off into preachy description, breaking the cardinal show-don't-tell rule, but his well-drawn characters, unexpected resolution and sharp casual insights make for an energizing read. (Publisher's Weekly Review)

SCIENCE FICTION

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer.


Starred Review. Nearly 40 years have passed since Dr. Sarah Halifax cracked an encoded message from an alien intelligence. A second encoded message presages the start of a human-alien dialog, and Sarah, now in her eighties, is offered a rare rejuvenation procedure to enable her to live long enough to usher in a new era. When the process succeeds for her husband but fails for her, she must continue her efforts at breaking the new code while coping with a husband with whom she can no longer grow old. Sawyer (Calculating God), winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, is no stranger to controversial issues. This tale raises many questions about the ethics of life extension. Above all, the author's characters bear their human strengths and weaknesses with dignity and poise. An elegantly told story for all libraries; highly recommended. (Library Journal Review)

Tempting Titles - Nonfiction - July

It's that time again. Here are some more tempting titles our librarians have selected for the library recently. The books are either already in the system or on the way.

To get to the online catalog record, click on the image or the book title link. There you can place a hold request, see similar subjects or other books by the same author, read first chapters, reviews or summaries, and enlarge the image.

Dewey Decimal 100s

What's Right With Me: Positive Ways to Celebrate Your Strengths, Build Self-esteem, & Reach Your Potential by Carlene Deroo

A mother and daughter team up to help readers identify, focus on, and develop their own strengths. This book offers an approach that leads to greater elf-esteem and a richer sense of life's possibilities--a positive and refreshing alternative to problem-focused self-help books. (Publisher's Summary)

Why We Believe What We Believe: Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth by Andrew B. Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

A scientific analysis of how the brain perceives and transforms reality into a wide range of personal, moral, creative, and spiritual beliefs. It draws on neurobiological and societal research to reveal how the mind is trained to receive belief systems but can guard against mental traps and prejudicial thinking. (Annotation from distributor)

Dewey Decimal 200s

Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God With Politics And Losing Their Way by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Robert Kennedy's daughter, twice Maryland's lieutenant governor, argues that churches should stop fighting political battles and return to tending their flocks. (Library Journal)

Dewey Decimal 300s

The Invisible Cure: Africa, The West, And The Fight Against AIDS by Helen Epstein
Epstein is a lucid writer, translating abstruse scientific concepts into language nonspecialists can easily grasp. Provocative, passionate and incisive, this may be the most important book on AIDS published this year—indeed, it may even save lives. (Publisher's Weekly)

Aftermath, Inc.: cleaning up after CSI goes home by Gil Reavil
For those drawn to the dark side of human experience (and equipped with strong stomachs), morbidly fascinating stuff and an essential addition to any True Crime reader's library. (Kirkus Reviews)

"Authors, Artists & Friends" Series

Travel doesn’t always turn out as planned. Shant Kenderian's two-week visit to Baghdad turned into a nightmare that lasted for ten years. Come to the Glendale Public Library to hear Shant Kenderian’s amazing story on Wednesday, July 18 at 7 p.m. The event is free.

Shant Kenderian's visit to Baghdad in 1980, at age seventeen, was supposed to be a short one -- just enough time to make peace with his estranged father before returning to his home in the United States. But then Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and sealed off Iraq's borders to every man of military age -- including Shant. Suddenly forced onto the front lines, his two-week visit turned into a ten year odyssey.

After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, recalling Kenderian to active duty before he could escape. When the landing craft he was on hit a mine in the Persian Gulf “ironically placed by his own unit” the survivors were picked up by an American frigate and the relieved Kenderian became a POW. Because of his flawless English, Kenderian was a favorite of his American captors.

After much diplomatic maneuvering, the self-described "man without a country" was granted "humanitarian parole" and returned to the U.S. Kenderian's decade-long ordeal is a bittersweet story, but after acknowledging his "really bad timing," he eschews the negative for an inspirational account of perseverance and survival.

Shant has written a book about this experience as well, 1001 Nights in Iraq: The Shocking Story of an American Forced to Fight for Saddam Against the Country He Loves.

This Week in Reading July 15 - 21

Among the anniverseries this week is the Riot Act. Authorities in England in the early 1700s were required to "read the Riot Act" to people disturbing the peace and many of us have heard the phrase without understanding what it was. We have our own, by the way, the Library Riot Act:

"Our sovereign, the reading king, chargeth and commandeth all persons, being noisily assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their literary habitations, or to their lawful school business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of blog reading, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. Quiet reading saves the library."

On the other hand, if you take out books and read at home you can gasp, sigh, cry, laugh, and speak back to the book to your heart's content. Authors and events this week will cause strong emotions one way or the other.

It's particularly important to see that this week marks the founding of the women's rights movement in America and also includes the nomination of a woman to the vice-presidency, and includes notable women from Phyllis Diller to Diana Rigg, Mary Baker Eddy to Iris Murdoch, and from Ida B. Wells to Arianna Huffington. Throw in Hemingway, McLuhan, and Derrida and that's not even half of this big week in reading which also includes poets, political leaders, satirists, novelists, mystery writers, athletes, artists, movie stars, and more.

This week's Question: To which author born this week is the term "Gonzo" applied?

Answer to last week's question: Marcel Proust's great multivolume work is often translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove, The Guermantes Way, Cities of the Plain, The Captive, The Sweet Cheat Gone, and The Past Recaptured. It begins with the taste of a pastry that reminds the narrator of his childhood and the rest of the books follow these memories in great detail. E.M. Forster called it "an epic of curiosity and despair" but Andre Maurois said Proust had plumbed the extremes of human misery but, like Shakespeare, had found serenity." (From Contempory Authors Online, through Biography Resource Center.) The library has them all, but in various editions.

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss 1939 - 2007

Famed historical romance novelist Kathleen E. Woodiwiss has passed away. She is credited with creating the genre and was known for the "spice" she added to her more complex plots. Her final novel, Everlasting, will be published this fall.

From an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2007: "Before Woodiwiss' first novel, 'The Flame and the Flower,' was published in 1972, romance fiction was wrapped around suspense or gothic tales.

"The romance part was demure and suggestive, the books relatively short.In developing a new category, Woodiwiss crafted more complex plots with somewhat controversial relationships. Her stories twist and turn for 500 pages or more before their happy endings." Mary Rourke, Times staff writer.

Celebrate 100 Years @ Glendale Public Library!

The Library is hosting an old fashioned Ice Cream Social on Saturday, August 18, 1 – 4 PM.

Celebrate the Library’s 100th Birthday with ice cream and entertainment for the whole family!

Enjoy a petting zoo, the Oddly Enuf Barbershop Quartet, balloon hats, games, prizes and of course lots of FREE ice cream!

It never rains in Southern California...

While Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California may not officially be considered a desert (believe me, I just spent a couple days in Las Vegas, where it topped out at 118 and the overnight low was a ridiculous 85--that's a desert!), as far as its lack of access to fresh water it certainly acts like one most of the time.

For the most part, though, I think many people living here take their water for granted. Swimming pools still dot the fancier housing areas, golf courses and residential green lawns evoke luxury and suburban pleasures, and few think twice about how much water it takes to bathe either oneself or one's cars.

The reality is much different, however, and water use is climbing throughout the arid Western states as more people continue to move to the region. The "history of water" in the West, and in Southern California and Los Angeles in particular, reveals this disturbing lack of awareness for the preciousness of this most fundamental human need. Perhaps the first book to really grab the attention of most people, and still quite a valuable work, was Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert. Originally written in 1986, Reisner revised and updated his classic in 1993, which also provided the source material for a 1997 PBS special.

Reisner passionately details the recent history of water management in the West, focusing intently on the troubling pattern of human ignorance infusing our choices regarding urban development. And even though the book might seem like a daunting challenge to any reader--it's a nearly 600 page treatise!--Reisner writes with such flair that Cadillac Desert reads more like a page-turning mystery. Unfortunately for all, Reisner died of cancer at the tragically young age of 51 in 2000, so any further research or updating we might have benefited from along his lines will have to come from someone else.

Norris Hundley, a professor at UCLA, provides an even more comprehensive look at the history of water use in California in his magisterial The Great Thirst. Hundley devotes nearly 800 pages (!) to his topic and implicitly builds on Reisner's work, although most of the sources Hundley cites are more academic in nature than Cadillac Desert. It is hard to imagine a more definitive account being written, and given Hundley's continuing interest (the latest revision was published in 2001), most likely he will be the person to write it!

Just to show that not all my favorite water studies are so massive, I also recommend Karen Piper's Left in the Dust. Los Angeles gets a good portion of its water from what used to be the Owens River Valley, which lies about 250 miles north of the city. Early in the 20th century, Owens River and Owens Lake provided water to local farmers and Native American tribespeople. Some from the expanding metropolis to the south saw this water as a ticket to insure their own real estate wealth and the continued cheap access to fresh water for a burgeoning suburban San Fernando Valley. If this sounds familiar to you, that's probably because the story of how the Owens River Valley was denuded of its water became part of the basis for the film Chinatown.

Left in the Dust explores the intricate fight between the denizens of Owens Valley and the titans of Los Angeles over this water, but also covers much more. Piper writes the history of the Owens Valley through a series of discrete chapters involving the various people who have chosen to live in this arid landscape--and also some who did not. (The Japanese internment camp Manzanar was located in the Valley, and Piper writes a poignant history of that shameful episode of American paranoia.) The overall theme of Left in the Dust is one of tragedy brought on by the sale of the water, especially for those who still live there; what used to be Owens Lake is now an alkali flat, and the high winds that blow regularly down the valley create massive poisonous dust clouds.

While not uplifting reads, each of these works should be essential reading for anyone living in the West. As global warming reduces the amount of available fresh water in our rivers (or even just by allowing our population to continue to increase), we will eventually have to find new ways of producing usable water, or leave the region entirely . . .

Items discussed:

This Week in Reading July 8 - 14

We settle in for a more normal summer week after the disruption of a midweek holiday and find that the authors born this week in July still include Nobel prizewinners like Pablo Neruda and Isaac Bashevis Singer. They range from fabulists and visionaries who toil in the farther fields of imagination to those who carefully choose their words and care how they look on the page.

This Week's Question: Marcel Proust, in ill health, spent the last three years of his life in his cork-lined bedroom. He wrote À la recherche du temps perdu. What is that title (usually) in English and what are the titles of the seven volumes it contains?

Answer to Last Week's Question: The centennial exhibition of the works of Frida Kahlo is currently in Mexico City at http://www.museobellasartes.artte.com/.

Simpsons Mania Sweeps the City!

As policy, we do not shill for the entertainment industry, a.k.a. "the business" as we call it here in Los Angeles, but because we can actually claim some library material related tie-ins, I couldn't resist!

If you hadn't heard already, the Simpsons movie will premiere later this month. In anticipation of said movie, we now have our very own Quik-E-Mart here in the metro area. The 7-11 on W. Olive Ave. in Burbank has been transformed and is now serving up Squishees and giant pink glazed donuts with sprinkles.....mmmmm......donuts!

In celebration of all things Simpsons, here are a few items you may want to check out.

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer

Simpsons Comics: Beach Blanket Bongo

Bart Simpsons Guide to Life

The Simpsons: The Complete First Season

The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield

This Week in Reading July 1 - 7

What is it about being born this time of year? It's the Fourth of July and it's good to share this week with some really great authors. Who knows, maybe one of us will get on this list in future years. For now just enjoy reading across wide world spectrums, like those between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hermann Hesse, and between the plays of Neil Simon and Tom Stoppard. And maybe the gap between Franz Kafka and James Cain is not so wide as it first seems. Don't set off any fireworks, except in your mind. Enjoy the midweek day off.

This Week's Question: Where is the primary exhibit of Frida Kahlo paintings being held to celebrate the centennial of her birth?

Answer to Last Week's Question: "Social Contract' was a term used by Rousseau, Locke, and others to describe the relationship between members of a society and their acceptance of a rule of law in order to be "free" and live reasonably together. More broadly, the term refers to institutions such as public libraries, schools, police and fire. Through these institutions, the community undertakes to provide services for its members by sharing expenses so that more services can be shared with all members of the community than could be individually obtained.

Mortified: real words, real people, real pathetic / edited by David Nadelberg

Did you ever want to snoop in your sister’s bedroom and read her diary? If so, this is your chance (well, sort of)! Mortified is a compilation of embarrassing, emotional, humorous and immature excerpts from real diaries, letters and notes and they’re guaranteed to get you reminiscing about your adolescent years.

Oh, and most likely if you kept a diary you’ll want to dig it out and read it all over again.

Spirited Away

Event for Teens!

The Grandview Branch Library will be showing the movie ‘Spirited Away’ on Wednesday, July 18th, 3:00-5:00pm. Come and enjoy the movie on our shaded, open air patio! Free popcorn and beverages will be provided.

In this Japanese anime adventure, 10 year old Chihiro and her parents wander into a town filled with gods, monsters and witches. When Chihrio’s parents are changed into animals she must fend for herself. This requires finding a job to make her way in this strange world until she can find her way back home.

Featuring the voices of Daveigh Chase, Michael Chiklis, Susan Egan, Lauren Holly, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette, and David Ogden Stiers. Walt Disney Pictures; Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Rated PG; 124 Minutes; 2002

If you are interested in Japanese animated films, known as anime, I recommend books on the subject such as The Anime Encyclopedia, by Jonathan Clements, or Anime Explosion! by Patrick Drazen.

This Week in Reading June 24 - 30

There are three more Nobel prizewinners born this week, a poet, Czeslaw Milosz, a playwright, Luigi Pirandello, and a novelist, Pearl S. Buck, each leaning toward the serious but beloved by millions. George Orwell's coinage of "doublespeak" also reached millions both in its definition and in its use upon them. Yet besides Ambrose Bierce's biting cynicism, no humorists this week reached more Americans than George Abbott and Mel Brooks. George Abbott was the defining producer who play doctored many so-so funny Broadway scripts into laugh riot extravanganzas and made them successes. After Broadway saw years of dwindling and bored audiences Mel Brooks brought the concept of a big, solidly entertaining Broadway show back with his brilliant Producers by using the simple idea Abbott had believed in, "make 'em laugh."

This Week's Question: Who, among this week's author, created the phrase "social contract" and what does it mean to public libraries and the people who utilize them? (Essays accepted.)

Answer to Last Week's Question: On the first program of his new weekly series Bill Moyers Journal on April 27, 2007 Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart of Daily Show fame. You can still see the video or read the transcript at the archive. A group of Glendale area persons meets monthly at the Learning Center of the Glendale Central Library to choose a video from the previous month's programs to watch, discuss, and blog about locally and nationally. The last meeting of the Moyers Talkers was last Thursday and the next is Thursday, July 19. Everyone's view is welcome.

"Authors, Artists & Friends" Series

A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility

Taner Akcam is widely recognized as one of the first Turkish scholars to write extensively and authoritatively on the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in the early 20th century. He is giving a free lecture and book signing at the Pacific Park Branch Library, 501 South Pacific Avenue on Saturday, June 30, 7 pm.

In 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, forced exile, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and world opinion have held the Ottoman powers responsible, Turkey has consistently rejected any claim of intentional genocide.

The first scholar of any nationality to have mined the significant evidence in Turkish military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness accounts Akçam follows the chain of events leading up to the killing and then reconstructs its systematic orchestration by coordinated departments of the Ottoman state, the ruling political parties, and the military. He also probes the crucial question of how Turkey succeeded in evading responsibility, pointing to competing international interests in the region, the priorities of Turkish nationalists, and the international community's inadequate attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Sociologist and historian Taner Akcam teaches at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Akcam grew up in Turkey, where he was imprisoned for editing a political publication and adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 1976. Akcam later received political asylum in Germany, where he earned a PhD from the University of Hannover and worked with the Hamburg Institute for Social Research on issues concerning the history of violence and torture in Turkey. He is the author of ten scholarly works of history and sociology, as well as numerous articles in Turkish, German, and English. His latest book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility can be checked out at the library.

RSVPs are highly recommended by calling 626.744.1177 ext 23 or online at www.facinghistory.org/losangeles

This lecture is presented by Facing History and Ourselves, and is cosponsored by the Glendale Public Library, Friends of the Glendale Public Library and Glendale Parks, Recreation and Community Services.

About Facing History and Ourselves
Facing History and Ourselves an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development and lessons of the Holocaust and other examples of collective violence and genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. Facing History reaches 1.6 million students worldwide each year.

Visit their website

The Library's Most Wanted Books

With over 185 holds and counting, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now by far the most requested book in our library catalog. Curious to see some more of the Library's popular titles? Here's a quick look at our most requested books this past month.

Click on the book cover images to find them in our library catalog. There you can read summaries and reviews, find other books by the same authors, or place a hold of your own!

"Authors, Artists & Friends" Series

Come hear John Ziegler discuss the death of free speech. It’s on Saturday, June 23, 10 am. It’s free, and it’s at the Glendale Public Library.

Radio talk-show host and TV commentator John Ziegler examines how the news media has created arbitrary, biased, and illogical rules for determining what can and cannot be said in the public arena. He details how in almost every major case of "speech and punishment" in modern America, the guilty verdict was wrong and unjust.

John Ziegler is a veteran of the radio and television industries who has been on the air in several major markets including Raleigh, Nashville, Philadelphia, Louisville, and Los Angeles, where he currently is the host of the evening show on KFI, the most listened to talk-radio station in the country. He has frequently served as a commentator on local and national television shows and as a columnist for numerous newspapers and prominent websites.

If you can’t make the event, or what to know more, check out his book, The Death of Free Speech: How Our Broken National Dialogue Has Killed the Truth and Divided America, an objective, credible, provocative, and entertaining look at one of the most important and underreported realities in American society. No one is in better position to tell this story than John Ziegler as he warns that this most cherished constitutional right is in grave jeopardy.

This Week in Reading June 17 - 23

The youngest author born this week surely sold more copies than any other writer born this week and the next youngest after that one put out works that sold in the millions, too. But several of the other authors who share the week had a much larger impact upon the world beyond reading, from theatre, film, and popular music to philosophy, religion and sociological research that affected many millions. Some the events affected many millions, too.

This Week's Question: One of this week's authors would have been a voluminous blogger of his day if the Internet had existed. He opined among his countless quotes "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." Who is it and what "message" is he associated with?

Answer to Last Week's Question: Sorry, this trick question tricked even me. None of last week's authors said it. I thought it was argued that Ben Jonson actually wrote it but it was penned by the little known Robert Greene, who wrote in 1592 "For there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as is the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." Jonson, on the other hand, eulogized Shakepeare with "He was not of an age but for all time." I used Bartlett's Familiar Quotations to find these out.

Tempting Titles: Nonfiction 800 - 900 - Biographies

Finshing up this round of good reading, still in Dewey Decimal order (The Biographies are all numbered 92 [Name of person biography is about] because they used be 920 but that got used to signify biographies of groups of people so libraries went with 92 or B. And, by the way, certain biographies are not there. If it's a writer or an actor, a musician, or an athlete their biography is in the Dewey Decimal number for his or her activity. Never mind, just ask at the Reference Desk. We'll tell you where.)

To get to the online catalog record click on the image or the book title link. There you can place a hold request, see similar subjects or other books by the same author, read first chapters, reviews or summaries, and enlarge the image.

800 Literature

Dog Years a memoir by Doty, Mark.

This sad, sad book represents a curious blend of memoir, journal, literary criticism, and prose elegy, and it borrows some structural elements from drama and poetry. Its tone is plangent, its complex formal structure is like memory itself, and its exquisite pace reminds one of nothing so much as a stroll in the park with Fido. Poignant, intelligent, and quite simply superb; highly recommended for most collections, although the Emily Dickinson criticism may make it too literary for the Marley & Me crowd. Library Journal.

Taz, the Blog Dog, suggests to look at the bookjacket to see what dogs are all about: "Why do dogs speak so profoundly to our inner lives? When poet Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he finds himself bringing home Beau, a large golden retriever, malnourished and in need of loving care. Beau joins Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family. As Beau bounds back into life, the two dogs become Doty's intimate companions, his solace, and eventually the very life force that keeps him from abandoning all hope during the darkest days. Their tenacity, loyalty, and love inspire him when all else fails. This is a moving and intimate memoir interwoven with profound reflections on our feelings for animals and the lessons they teach us about life, love, and loss. Doty writes about the heart-wrenching vulnerability of dogs, the positive energy and joy they bring, and the gift they bear us of unconditional love."--Publisher bookjacket.

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater by Wilder, Thornton / McClatchy, J.D. selected and wrote notes.

Starred Review. This latest Library of America collection is a doozy. This volume gathers a heap of Wilder's early one-acters with Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker, plus his writings on theater and a sweet bonus of his screenplay for Hitchcock's 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt. Overall, there are about three dozen plays and another dozen essays. Essential for theater collections. Library Journal

900 Geography, Travel, History, Biography

Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe that Ended the Outlaw’s Bloody Reign by Stephan Talty

A vivid portrait of pirate life, and even better as an analysis of why the ruthless outlaws were so peculiarly suited for success against hapless Spain. Kirkus


Necessary Sins: A Memoir by Lynn Darling

Anyone who is married will laugh with Darling as she describes the disappointment she felt when her new hubby gave her towels for Valentine’s Day, and underline her many insights into the “cycles [of] domestic life. “Unsettling and absorbing.” Kirkus


Too Close to the Sun: the Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton by Wheeler, Sara

Beautifully rendered biography of the last of the great Victorian gentlemen-adventurers, by accomplished English author Wheeler (Cherry, 2002, etc.). A charismatic personality of the first order, and with impeccable lineage to boot, Denys Finch Hatton (1887–1931) gained importance as one of the first-rank white hunters in British East Africa during the 1920s, as well as the lover of authors Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and Beryl Markham, among others. Kirkus