by Monica Ali. From the immigrant world of East End London in Brick Lane, shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize, Ali moves into the culinary world of a once posh London hotel restaurant, again capturing the multicultural layers of modern London. Gabriel Lightfoot, executive chef for the Imperial Hotel, dreams of owning his own restaurant but must first contend with the UN task force that is his kitchen crew. His life becomes even more complicated when the body of a Hungarian porter is found dead in a storeroom. Still, restaurant troubles are nothing when compared with his personal life. His girlfriend is pressuring him about marriage, unaware that he's sleeping with a Russian kitchen girl, and his ever-difficult father is dying of cancer. Gabe's two stories entwine, the pressure mounts, and, finally, he loses his bearings. With sometimes sly humor, Ali deftly sheds light on the irony of struggling in a land with abundant opportunities. For all fiction readers. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Atomic awakening : a new look at the history and future of nuclear power

by James Mahaffey. For many people, the idea of nuclear power died with the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, but for the curious and open-minded, this book offers a timely look at nuclear technology that, the author argues, could provide plenty of cheap, renewable energy, if only we can get past our oversized dread of it. Mahaffey's history lesson begins along a familiar path, from 17th-century chemist Robert Boyle to the great 20th-century physicists. Nazism and WWII sent hundreds of scientists—and their cutting-edge work—to the U.S. But the war also sent that research underground in the ultra-secret Manhattan Project. Researchers also dreamed of peaceful atoms to generate electricity and run submarines, planes and rockets. The specters of Hiroshima and a few horrifying nuclear accidents displaced that peaceful vision. With a wealth of anecdotes, Mahaffey, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, offers hope leavened with pragmatism that, while nuclear technology may be experimental forever, it can still be useful and safe. --Publisher's weekly (Check Catalog)

Wicked prey

by John Sandford. The 2008 Republican convention serves as the backdrop for bestseller Sandford's amped-up, ultra-violent 19th thriller to feature Lucas Davenport of the Minneapolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after Phantom Prey). An assassination plot aimed at John McCain turns out to be just a sidebar to another criminal operation—extremely slick thieves have come to the twin cities to rob Republican political operatives loaded down with millions of dollars of street money, illegal handouts for low-level campaign workers. Mastermind Rosie Cruz handles the gang's complicated planning, while gangster Brutus Cohn does the robbery and killing aided by a couple of lesser thugs. A subplot involving Davenport's teenage ward, Letty West, who's provided interesting complications in the series, establishes her as a brave and intrepid investigator. A slam-bang shootout climax proves that Davenport still has what it takes when it comes to guts and gunplay.--Publisher's Weekly (Check catalog)

Honeymoon in Tehran : two years of love and danger in Iran

by Azadeh Moaveni. In her new memoir, American-born journalist Moaveni (Lipstick Jihad) returns to Tehran in 2005 to cover Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election for Time magazine, hoping to make the city her permanent home. Her plans are complicated by the standoff with the U.S. over Iran's nuclear program, as well as several unexpected turns in her life. She falls in love, moves in with her boyfriend, becomes pregnant, gets married—in that order—in a country that has no word for boyfriend and no qualms about brutally beating unmarried pregnant women. Through her own experience, Moaveni reports on the growing apathy of the people of Iran, a society burdened by staggering inflation and tensions between religion, political oppression and secular life, the latter ever more enticing through ubiquitous, illegal satellite television. Gradually, the idealism and religious faith that characterized Moaveni's younger years wane. With the birth of her son, her misgivings come to a head, compounded by the spying, threats and intimidation she experienced at the hands of the Ministry of Intelligence. Moaveni, who now lives in London with her family, has penned a story of coming-of-age in two cultures with a keen eye and a measured tone. --Publisher's Weekly (Check catalog)

Brooklyn : a novel

by Colm Tóibín This latest from Tóibín (The Master) begins in the southwestern Ireland town of Enniscorthy during the early 1950s, where dutiful daughter, doting sister, and aspiring bookkeeper Eilis Lacey lives with her mother and older sister, Rose. Her brothers have long since left Ireland to seek work in England, and Eilis herself soon departs for Brooklyn, NY. Once there, she attempts to master living and working in a strange land and to quell an acute and threatening loneliness. Initially friendless and of few means, Eilis gradually embraces new freedoms. She excels in work and school, falls in love, and begins to imagine a life in America. When tragedy strikes in Enniscorthy, however, Eilis returns to discover the hopes and aspirations once beyond her grasp are now hers for the taking. Tóibín conveys Eilis's transformative struggles with an aching lyricism reminiscent of the mature Henry James and ultimately confers upon his readers a sort of grace that illuminates the opportunities for tenderness in our lives. Both more accessible and more sublime than his previous works, this is highly recommended. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

How Lincoln learned to read : twelve great Americans and the educations that made them

by Daniel Wolff. This extended essay, in the form of a dozen entertaining profiles of great Americans—an unexpected cross-section, from Ben Franklin to Elvis Presley—provides an unusual look at the varieties of educational experience that shaped these groundbreakers. Along the way, many of the prejudices and misunderstandings that are part of the American fabric are shown to be overcome by each through his or her mode of learning. Poet Wolff (4th of July, Asbury Park) shows how the studied yokel Ben Franklin created an American archetype, and how Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan would inspire Maria Montessori on the instruction of all children. Wolff wears his learning lightly, and there is a subtlety to his contrasting biographies. For example, the education of Lincoln, whose formal schooling ended at the age of 15, could not be further from the privileged world of JFK's; auto pioneer Henry Ford and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, both Midwesterners, could not be more different. Above all, Wolff observes that in our national tradition an American education is going to bear the marks of rebellion. --Publisheer's Weekly (Check Catalog)

A world I loved: the story of an Arab woman

by Wadad al-Maqdisi. Through Cortas’ eyes we experience life in Lebanon under the oppressive French mandate, and her desire to forge an Arab identity based on religious tolerance. We learn of her dedication to the education of women, and the difficulties that she overcomes to become the principal of a school in Lebanon. And in final, heartbreaking detail, we watch as her world becomes rent by the “Palestine question,” Western interference, and civil war. (Check Catalog)

First family

by David Baldacci. Plenty of intense action drives bestseller Baldacci's stellar fourth novel to feature former Secret Service agents Michelle Maxwell and Sean King (after Simple Genius). Maxwell and King, D.C. PIs, step on the toes of everyone, including the FBI and the Secret Service. They even manage to bruise the ego of First Lady Jane Cox, who hires them after her 12-year-old niece is kidnapped following a birthday party at Camp David. Baldacci excels at making the improbable believable as one obsessed man, 62-year-old Sam Quarry, takes on the best security the U.S. can muster from his Alabama redoubt. Even more impressive than Quarry's determined campaign is the ingeniousness with which Baldacci manages to disguise both Quarry's precise motivation and aims. Meanwhile, Maxwell has to deal with her mother's death and a host of other personal issues. Baldacci's careful plotting and confidant depictions of national security procedures make this a thinking man's thriller. --Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Soft despotism, democracy's drift : Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the modern prospect

by Paul Anthony Rahe. Rahe (history & political science, Hillsdale Coll.; Republics Ancient and Modern) has actually written two books in one: the first three quarters are a detailed reading of the great 18th- and 19th-century political and social theorists Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville on the nature of government, the glue that holds the polity together, and the difficulty maintaining political virtue and, with it, individual freedom, in a democratic republic. The threat to liberty and civic virtue, as Tocqueville saw it, lay in the elimination of intermediate bodies (like townships) that directly involved citizens in governing. Without such intermediate bodies, democracy would drift into soft despotism, with a central government regulating the smallest details of the citizen's life. This part of the book is tightly reasoned, relying on a thoughtful reading of texts that still have great merit for our own age. The final section of the book is an impassioned, occasionally intemperate, but largely successful attempt to describe the malaise gripping democratic governments today, combined with a plea to limit government's intrusion into our lives. (The author quite evidently holds libertarian views.) Many scholars and serious readers will find this essential reading. (Check catalog)

Knockout

by Catherine Coulter. Bestseller Coulter's riveting 13th FBI thriller (after TailSpin) opens with a bang as psychic FBI agent Dillon Savich thwarts a gang of gun-totting robbers attempting to hold up the First Union Bank of Washington, D.C. Three days later, seven-year-old Autumn Backman, who sees Dillon on TV, sends him a telepathic message that she's in danger. Though eager to help Autumn, Dillon is busy tracking a bank robber who escaped, a teenage girl now leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. Meanwhile, in Titusville, Va., Autumn's mother reports her daughter missing to sheriff Ethan Merriweather. After finding Autumn, Ethan discovers her sinister uncle, Blessed, has evil designs on his psychic niece. Before Dillon and his fellow FBI agent and wife, Lacey Sherlock, can get to Titusville, Autumn and her mother flee. Well-developed characters and an expertly paced plot that builds to a breathtaking conclusion make this one of the best in this paranormal suspense series. --Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Baader-Meinhof : the inside story of the R.A.F.

by Stefan Oust. The quintessential radical leftist terrorist group, founded in 1970 and eventually known as the Red Army Faction, Baader-Meinhof was responsible for 34 deaths in Germany over a 30-year period. Aust (former editor in chief, Der Spiegel) first published a book on this group in 1985, with an updated version appearing in 1997. This revised and expanded edition is the first to appear here in English translation. Exhaustively detailing the group's exploits from 1970 until the prison suicides of the leaders in 1977, Aust offers fascinating insights into both the spectacular and the mundane aspects of life in a terrorist cadre. He also offers includes new information obtained from Stasi files released after Germany's reunification. VERDICT The narrative stresses Baader-Meinhof's actions rather than analysis of its ideology, which can only be gleaned from quotes by members interspersed throughout and from Aust's commentary about the political climate in Germany at the time. Still, this fast-paced account allows readers to peer into the minds of actors engaged in committing horrific acts of violence with the goal of advancing a political agenda—a timely subject in the age of global terrorism.—Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Robert Ludlum's the Bourne deception : a new Jason Bourne novel

by Eric Lustbader. Shadowy master assassin Jason Bourne spends too much time offstage in bestseller Lustbader's cliché-ridden fourth thriller in the Ludlum franchise (after The Bourne Sanction). Having pushed his latest archenemy, Russian Leonid Arkadin, off a tanker into the ocean, Bourne assumes his foe must be dead. Not long after, Arkadin ambushes Bourne, hitting him with a rifle shot that would've killed a normal man. Seriously but not mortally wounded, Bourne decides to keep his survival a secret. The duel between the pair gets submerged in a plot line about a corrupt U.S. defense secretary's efforts to use the downing of a civilian airliner in Egypt by an Iranian missile as a casus belli. The action sequences and inevitable betrayals are old hat. Clumsy prose doesn't help (£She was dead, but he could not forget her, or what she caused in him: the tiniest fissure in the speckled granite of his soul, through which her mysterious light had begun to trickle, like the first snowmelt of spring ). (Check Catalog)

The peasant prince : Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the age of revolution

by Alex Storozynski. One of the largely forgotten heroes of the American Revolution was a Polish immigrant with a virtually unpronounceable last name—Thaddeus (Tadeusz) Kos´ciuszko (kosh-chew-sko). A brilliant military engineer, Kos´ciuszko arrived in Philadelphia in August 1776 and, on Benjamin Franklin's doorstep, volunteered his services to the Revolution. He proceeded to construct defenses for Philadelphia, helped devise a successful battle plan at Saratoga, and designed the defenses at West Point—the plans that Benedict Arnold was so interested in selling to the British. Much to the chagrin of his French counterparts, he was appointed chief engineer of the army and participated in the final campaign at Yorktown. Kos´ciuszko returned to Poland eager to emulate the American independence movement there, leading the Polish army against the Russian invasion. Unfortunately, that cause was lost, and he was captured but later pardoned by Tsar Paul I. For the rest of his life, he championed human rights. Using new archival sources in Switzerland and Poland, Storozynski has written a complete biography of a truly great republican. Strongly recommended for both lay readers and specialists.—Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Medusa : a novel from the NUMA files

by Clive Cussler. In the latest in the long line of popular adventure novels by Cussler, whose first major success, Raise the Titanic, now seems eons ago, an influenza pandemic in China threatens to explode and kill countless millions. While a joint U.S. and Chinese team makes strides on a vaccine, bad guys working on their own vaccine to gain great wealth and power kidnap the scientists. Enter Cussler hero Kurt Austin (The Navigator) and his NUMA® buddies to take on the villains, and who do you think will win? Cussler loves to combine history with current action, so the key to a vaccine lies in the log of an 1847 whaling ship owned by the descendants of a crewman. VERDICT Cussler's thrillers are predictable and over the top, attributes relished by his legions of fans, and this one is filled with action, heroics, and apparently plausible science, which makes for great summer escape reading. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Time and tide in Acadia : seasons on Mount Desert Island

by Christopher Camuto.
An evocative exploration of the natural life of Maine's Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. (Check catalog)

The increment : a novel

by David Ignatius. Can a heartsore and weary CIA veteran juice up fresh, meaty intelligence from buttoned-down Tehran? Does his trusted Secret Intelligence Service colleague have an inside track, and will he share? Who really holds the cards on the nuclear weapons story in Iran? Ignatius (Body of Lies), the Washington Post columnist whose knowledge of spydom and exotic places brilliantly illuminates his espionage novels, imagines an Iran where a young physicist is ready to turn his back on the regime. Agent Harry Pappas works out a plausible lifeline, and the adventure begins. Ignatius floods his latest book with highlights of technology while exploring the dark heart of human betrayal with menacing ambiguity. This masterful and modern-day account of a realistic nuclear threat has already been sold to movie moguls and will be heavily promoted. A sure bet for all thriller collections. -Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Successful step-parenting

by Suzie Hayman. Create a strong family. "Teach Yourself Successful Step-Parenting" gives you solid advice on blending families successfully. It covers everything from the earliest days of a new relationship to the issues raised by a new baby.. (Check Catalog)

First family

by David Baldacci. Plenty of intense action drives bestseller Baldacci's stellar fourth novel to feature former Secret Service agents Michelle Maxwell and Sean King (after Simple Genius). Maxwell and King, D.C. PIs, step on the toes of everyone, including the FBI and the Secret Service. They even manage to bruise the ego of First Lady Jane Cox, who hires them after her 12-year-old niece is kidnapped following a birthday party at Camp David. Baldacci excels at making the improbable believable as one obsessed man, 62-year-old Sam Quarry, takes on the best security the U.S. can muster from his Alabama redoubt. Even more impressive than Quarry's determined campaign is the ingeniousness with which Baldacci manages to disguise both Quarry's precise motivation and aims. -Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

The PETA practical guide to animal rights : simple acts of kindness to help animals in trouble

by Ingrid Newkirk. More of a catchall than an outline for focused animal rights advocacy, this comprehensive revision of Newkirk's 1999 You Can Save the Animals: 251 Simple Ways To Stop Thoughtless Cruelty nonetheless furnishes information useful to even experienced activists. President and cofounder of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Newkirk writes in direct and conversational prose that disarms while it educates. Her useful overview of various arenas of animal abuse reminds us of how entrenched the brutalization of animals is in our society and encourages us to be more conscious and caring. (Check Catalog)