The weed that strings the hangman's bag : a Flavia de Luce mystery

 by C. Allen Bradley. When our heroine, conducting a mock funeral for herself in the village churchyard, encounters a weeping red-headed woman, the 11-year-old's precocious wit and sympathy immediately charm the tearful Nialla: "I like you, Flavia de Luce." The many readers who made Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie a best seller will concur, and newcomers, too, will fall under Flavia's spell in this second sleuthing adventure. Nialla is the assistant to master puppeteer Rupert Porson, whose van has broken down in the English hamlet of Bishop's Lacey. When he is fatally electrocuted during a performance, Nialla becomes a suspect in his murder. Putting aside her chemistry experiments and poisoning plots against her tormenting older sisters, Flavia sets out on her trusty bike, Gladys, to investigate. Verdict While the plot at times stretches credulity, with some characters veering close to Agatha Christie stereotypes, Flavia is such an entertaining narrator that most readers will cheerfully go along for the ride. Sure to appeal to Anglophiles and mystery fans nostalgic for the genre's Golden Age. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Silent Cal's almanack : the homespun wit and wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge

 by Calvin Coolidge. The book was put together by local author, David Pietrusza. Accordng to the publisher it is: A treasury of the wit and wisdom of Calvin Coolidge, America's surprisingly eloquent 30th President.Silent Cal's Almanack includes:* The ultimate distillation of Calvin Coolidge political wisdom.* A selection of Silent Cal's key speeches.* A thought-provoking original biographical essay.* A fascinating and unique 50-page portfolio of Coolidge photos, editorial cartoons and campaign memorabilia.* A Coolidge timeline.* A Coolidge bibliography."He wrote simply, innocently, artlessly," H. L. Mencken once noted regarding Coolidge's prose, "He forgot all the literary affectations and set down his ideas exactly as they came into his head. The result was a bald, but strangely appealing piece of writing-a composition of almost Lincolnian austerity and beauty. The true Vermonter was in every line of it."Supreme Court Justice David Souter recently wrote of Calvin Coolidge: "The simple beauty of his English prose exceeds anything I could say in praise of it."  (Check Catalog)

The surrendered

 by Chang-Rae Lee. June Singer is a middle-aged Korean woman living in the United States and dying of cancer, but before she dies, she wants to accomplish two things: find her son, who is drifting around Italy, and make a redemptive pilgrimage to the Chapel of Bones. She enlists the unwilling help of Hector, her son's father, whom she hasn't seen since the 1950s, when she was a child in a Korean orphanage and Hector was an ex-soldier working as the handyman. Throughout June and Hector's painful journey, we learn about the Tanners, the couple who ran the orphanage; Sylvie Tanner's childhood as a daughter of missionaries who were slain in front of her; the possessive love that June and Hector had for Sylvie; and the resulting calamity that has haunted them their whole lives. VERDICT This is a completely engrossing story of great complexity and tragedy. Lee's (Aloft) ability to describe his characters' sufferings, both physical and mental, is extraordinarily vivid; one is left in awe of the human soul's ability to survive the most horrific experiences. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

For all the tea in China : how England stole the world's favorite drink and changed history

 by Sarah Rose. Through the adventures of Robert Fortune, a nineteenth-century plant hunter, the reader learns a delicious brew of information on the history of tea cultivation and consumption in the Western world. Rose's book is certain to draw the attention of history buffs, foodies, avid travel-literature fans, followers of popular science, and perhaps even business-interest book consumers as she reconstructs what she posits as the greatest theft of trade secrets in the history of mankind. Tea was grown in China. Great Britain wanted tea. But trying to trade with the Celestial Empire was like pulling teeth. So the East India Company sent hunter Fortune, undercover (dressed in mandarin robes), to penetrate the depths of China and surreptitiously gather steal, in other words seeds and young plants and send them to India, where they would flourish in soil that was part of the British Empire. The author's bold conclusion to this remarkably riveting tale is that Fortune's actions would today be described as industrial espionage, but nevertheless he changeed the fate of nations. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

The kitchen house

 by Kathleen Grisson. Grissom's unsentimental debut twists the conventions of the antebellum novel just enough to give readers an involving new perspective on what would otherwise be fairly stock material. Lavinia, an orphaned seven-year-old white indentured servant, arrives in 1791 to work in the kitchen house at Tall Oaks, a Tidewater, Va., tobacco plantation owned by Capt. James Pyke. Belle, the captain's illegitimate half-white daughter who runs the kitchen house, shares narration duties, and the two distinctly different voices chronicle a troublesome 20 years: Lavinia becomes close to the slaves working the kitchen house, but she can't fully fit in because of her race. At 17, she marries Marshall, the captain's brutish son turned inept plantation master, and as Lavinia ingratiates herself into the family and the big house, racial tensions boil over into lynching, rape, arson, and murder. The plantation's social order's emphasis on violence, love, power, and corruption provides a trove of tension and grit, while the many nefarious doings will keep readers hooked to the twisted, yet hopeful, conclusion. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

The field guide to fields : hidden treasures of meadows, prairies, and pastures

 by Bill Laws. Not for nothing are amber waves of grain celebrated in our national anthem, but set aside the iconic imagery, and the fact still remains that fields of oats, wheat, rice, and corn have sustained the world's great civilizations since time began. Yet how, when, and why this agricultural phenomenon and landscape paragon came into being has been both a source of mystery for archaeologists and fount of inspiration for artists who recognize and celebrate the importance and beauty of fields. From rice paddies in Asia to sheep meadows in Australia, from Mideastern olive groves to Midwestern corn fields, nearly 40 percent of the earth's surface is covered with crop fields that feed the human population and fuel its productivity. Exploring the history of today's modern farm fields, examining the impact of environmental threats, and mapping the future of field management, Laws' unique, succinct yet comprehensive resource celebrates the folklore and chronicles the flora and fauna that comprise the stunning variety of field habitats across the globe. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

The wife's tale : a novel

 by Lori Lansens. Mary Gooch is beyond shock when her husband leaves the night before their silver anniversary party. Jimmy Gooch has always loved her, but with each new trauma-two early miscarriages, her father's death, even the loss of her feral cat-Mary has felt less worthy of his affection and more hungry. Now weighing 302 pounds, Mary can't seem to move past her malaise. Finding $25,000 in their bank account, Mary flies, for the first time, from their small Canadian town to her mother-in-law's home in Southern California, determined to wait for her prodigal spouse. While there, she loses her appetite but discovers a measure of self-worth through the "kindness of strangers." VERDICT Lansens's (The Girls) portrait of a woman who hides behind the Kenmore as protection from life's heartache is earthy and primal in its pain. Yet Lansens doesn't resort to an overnight makeover to save Mary. Instead, our heroine uncovers a hidden strength she had all along. Those who loved The Girls will be pleased that Lansens is back. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Country driving : a journey through China from farm to factory

 by Peter Hessler. This is American journalist Hessler's third travelog-memoir about present-day China, following his Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present. Here he writes of his multiyear journey across mainland China, from the interior farmlands to the heart of urban life there, living for a time with a family from the small but historical Sancha village. Through accounts of his day-to-day interactions, Hessler reveals the struggles of rural life amid the enormous modernization of the country and how the modest ways of life are slowly being erased by the lure of the market economy and big money. Hessler then travels to the coastal regions of Zhejiang, to the booming industrial city of Lishu, where he finds a cast of fascinating characters, including factory bosses, farm girls, and traveling troupes, their lives intertwining in a struggle to survive and adapt to the new life and philosophy of a growing consumer-driven society and an often brutally corrupt political system. VERDICT Hessler offers Western readers an intimate story of a much-analyzed but often misunderstood world; both lay readers and scholars will appreciate. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Union Atlantic : a novel

 by Adam Haslett. In Haslett's excellent first novel (following Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here), a titan of the banking industry does battle with a surprisingly formidable opponent: a retired history teacher. Doug Fanning has built Union Atlantic from a mid-size Boston bank to an international powerhouse and rewards himself by building a rural palace in Finden, Mass. The land his house is built on, however, had been donated to Finden for preservation by Charlotte Graves's grandfather, and Charlotte believes she now has a claim on the lot. She may be right, and her disdain of modern decadence means bad news for Doug should she win in court. Meanwhile, high school senior Nate Fuller, who visits Charlotte for tutoring and Doug for awkward and lopsided sexual encounters, finds himself with the power to upset the legal and cultural war game. Haslett's novel is smart and carefully constructed, and his characters are brilliantly flawed. (Charlotte's emerging instability is especially heartbreaking.) This book should be of interest to readers fascinated but perplexed by the current financial crisis, as it is able to navigate the oubliette of Wall Street trading to create searing and intimate drama. --Publishers Weekly. (Check catalog)

Crisis and command : the history of executive power, from George Washington to George W. Bush

 by John Yoo. Using a popular technique for ranking American presidents, Yoo refracts their historical status through the lens of Article II of the Constitution. George Washington rates number one in Yoo's book for setting precedents: all his successors have the power to remove officials, to wage war, and to invoke executive privilege (keep secrets from Congress) none of which is explicit in Article II because of Washington. Yoo rates Lincoln and FDR second and third, respectively, for reasons familiar to history readers. Readers will learn about Supreme Court decisions that have pertained to the president's powers, along with Yoo's expansive interpretation thereof. Addressing criticism that the power pendulum has historically swung too far from Congress, Yoo rebuts with arguments that the legislature could, but rarely does, reclaim powers it has delegated to the executive. This will appeal to the core audience for constitutional law but will also draw interest based on the author's frequent TV appearances and his notoriety many critics regarded his legal advice to the Bush administration as anathema. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The girl who fell from the sky : a novel

 by Heidi W. Durrow. Durrow's first novel, inspired by a real event, won the 2008 Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice. The young protagonist, Rachel, is the only survivor after her mother apparently threw her and her two siblings from a roof and then jumped to her own death. Like a good mystery, this book builds to the startling revelation of what really happened and why a loving mother would kill her children. But there's much more, and if the novel has a weakness, it's that it oozes conflict. Rachel, who is biracial, is abandoned by her father; a boy who witnesses the rooftop incident has his own difficulties, including a neglectful mother who's also a prostitute. But one can't help but be drawn in by these characters and by the novel's exploration of race and identity. Verdict With similar themes to Zadie Smith's White Teeth and a tone of desolation and dislocation like Graham Swift's Waterland and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, this is also recommended for readers intrigued by the psychology behind shocking headlines. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)

The death and life of American journalism : the media revolution that will begin the world again

 by Robert Waterman McChesney. McChesney (communications, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Rich Media, Poor Democracy) and Nation Washington correspondent Nichols (Dick: The Man Who Is President) join the current conversations on the crisis in journalism with a provocative proposal for a public intervention to rescue the press. First, they cover familiar ground in their analysis of the current crisis and the history of government-press relations. In the book's last third, they break new ground by advocating that the government intervene with a four-part plan to sustain journalism as a transition is planned, convert newspapers into "post-corporate" digital formats, transform public broadcasting into "world-class" democratic media, and spawn competitive news-media on the Internet. Strategies to accomplish this include subsidizing postage, creating a journalism division of AmeriCorps, and funding both high school news media and independent Internet journalism. With a $35-billion price tag, these proposals are bound to be controversial, especially to those who value the idea of an adversarial relationship between the press and government. Verdict This well-written and thought-provoking book is sure to spark heated debate within the journalism community. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

The postmistress

 by Sarah Blake.  Frankie Bard is a young female reporter in London during the Blitz, working with the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Eric Severeid. Her broadcasts make an impression on the residents of Franklin, MA-Dr. Will Fitch and wife Emma, garage owner Harry Vale, and postmaster Iris James-who in 1940-41 don't know how or if the war will affect them. Harry is sure the Germans are about to land on their beach, while, hearing Frankie talk of an orphaned boy, Emma and Will don't feel the news goes far enough. Iris insists that "there is an order and a reason" to everything, and "every letter sent.proves it." First novelist Blake doesn't let her work fall prey to easy sentimentality; this story is harsh and desperate, as indeed is war, but her writing is incisive and lush: a house missing a piece of mortar, "as if it had been bitten"; a distracted Iris, with "sand.dribbling out of the bag of her attention." VERDICT Even readers who don't think they like historical novels will love this one and talk it up to their friends. Highly recommended for all fans of beautifully wrought fiction. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)

The art of choosing

 by Sheena Lyengar. "Choice," perhaps the highest good in the American socioeconomic lexicon, is a very mixed blessing, according to this fascinating study of decision making and its discontents. Psychologist Iyengar cites evidence that a paucity of choice can damage the mental and physical health of dogs, rats, and British civil servants alike. But, she contends, choice can also mislead and burden us: advertising manipulates us through the illusion of choice; a surfeit of choices can paralyze decision making; and some choices, like the decision to withdraw life support from a loved one, are so terrible that we are happier if we delegate them to others. Iyengar draws on everything from the pensees of Albert Camus to The Matrix, but her focus is on the ingenious experiments that psychologists have concocted to explore the vagaries of choice. (In her own experiment, shoppers presented with an assortment of 24 jams were 1/10th as likely to buy some than those who were shown a mere six.) Iyengar writes in a lucid, catchy style, very much in the Malcolm Gladwell vein of pop psychology-cum-social commentary, but with more rigor. The result is a delightful, astonishing take on the pitfalls of making up one's mind. --Publisher's weekly. (Check catalog)

The wild zone : a novel

 by Joy Fielding. The Wild Zone, a South Beach (Miami Beach, Fla.) bar filled with lusty men-specifically, charismatic personal trainer Jeff Rydell; his cute visiting half-brother, Will, a Princeton graduate student; and Jeff's married best friend, Tom Whitman, a dishonorably discharged Afghanistan war veteran with some serious problems-provides the starting point for bestseller Fielding's nonstop thrill ride. A sexy bar patron, Suzy Bigelow, inspires the trio to make a wager on who can bed her first, and they even ask Jeff's live-in girlfriend, a Wild Zone bartender, for help. Suzy chooses Will for a platonic date, which has some distinctly unpleasant repercussions that involve not only wide-eyed Will but desperate, gun-loving Tom, whose wife takes their children and files for divorce. Fielding (Still Life) combines a fast-paced plot with top-notch character development to create an atmosphere of brooding unease that explodes in a wonderfully wild resolution. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

Stones into schools : promoting peace with books, not bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

 by Greg Mortenson. Mortenson's best-seller, Three Cups of Tea (2009), introduced his commitment to peace through education and became a book-club phenomenon. He now continues the story of how the Central Asia Institute (CAI) built schools in northern Afghanistan. Descriptions of the harsh geography and more than one near-death experience impress readers as new faces join Mortenson's loyal Dirty Dozen as they carefully plot a course of school-building through the Badakshan province and Wakhan corridor. Mortenson also shares his friendships with U.S. military personnel, including Admiral Mike Mullen, and the warm reception his work has found among the officer corps. The careful line CAI threads between former mujahideen commanders, ex-Taliban and village elders, and the American soldiers stationed in their midst is poetic in its political complexity and compassionate consideration. Using schools not bombs to promote peace is a goal that even the most hard-hearted can admire, but to blandly call this book inspiring would be dismissive of all the hard work that has gone into the mission in Afghanistan as well as the efforts to fund it. Mortenson writes of nothing less than saving the future, and his adventure is light years beyond most attempts. Mortenson did not reach the summit of K2, but oh, the heights he has achieved. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

Secrets of Eden : a novel

 by Christopher A. Bohjalian. Who killed Alice Hayward? Was it the charismatic pastor who baptized her hours before her death? Was it her abusive husband, George, who then took a gun to himself? Or was it Heather Laurent, a famous author of books about angels, who may have a demonic side? On the surface, the crime scene at the Hayward's comfortable Vermont village home appears to be a straightforward case of murder-suicide in which George Hayward strangled his wife and then blew his brains out. But to Deputy State's Attorney Catherine Benincasa, things are rarely as they seem, a view that is reinforced when Alice's diary is found with cryptic references to Reverend Stephen Drew. Suffering from his own crisis of faith, Drew is particularly susceptible to the not-unwelcome attention of Laurent, who believes she is a guardian angel sent to help Drew resolve these conflicts. Always a solid craftsman, Bohjalian brings his trademark brand of astute character development to these delightfully ambiguous portraits of suspects, victims, and accusers alike, as he drops bombshell clues through sly, innocuous asides and weaves subtle nuances of doubt and intrigue into a taut, read-in-one-sitting murder mystery. --Booklist. (Check catalog)

Making rounds with Oscar : the extraordinary gift of an ordinary cat

 by David Dosa. Dosa, a geriatrician with a strong aversion to cats, tells the endearing story of Oscar the cat, the aloof resident at a nursing home who only spends time with people who are about to die. Despite hearing numerous stories about Oscar's uncanny ability to predict when a patient's time is nearing, Dosa, ever the scientist, remains skeptical. Slowly, he starts to concede that there may be something special about Oscar. Dosa starts to pay more attention to the cat's decidedly odd behavior, noticing that Oscar seeks out the dying, snuggles with the patient and family members until the patient passes; with others, he smells the patient's feet, sits outside a closed door until admitted, or refuses to leave a dying patient's bed. Dosa discovers how powerfully Oscar's mere presence reassures frightened or grieving family. Ultimately, the good doctor realizes that it doesn't matter where Oscar's gift comes from; it's the comfort he brings that's important. This touching and engaging book is a must-read for more than just cat lovers; anyone who enjoys a well-written and compelling story will find much to admire in its unlikely hero. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

The whiskey rebels : a novel

 by David Liss. Liss is at his best when buried deep in the bowels of eighteenth-century finance, as he was in his Edgar-winning debut, A Conspiracy of Paper (2000), which starred Benjamin Weaver, a British thief-taker (recoverer of stolen goods) in a thriller about London's notorious Exchange Market. This time he sticks with the period and the financial milieu but moves the action across the ocean to America in the years immediately following the revolution. It's a tumultuous time, with Hamiltonians sparring with Jeffersonians, and Hamilton himself hoping to secure his position with the establishment of the National Bank. Into the mix comes Ethan Saunders, a celebrated spy during the war but now living a dissolute life in Philadelphia as a drunkard and gambler. Attempting to come to the aid of his former lover, the wife of a stock trader and associate of Hamilton's, Saunders falls in with the whiskey rebels, backcountry moonshiners furious with Hamilton's whiskey tax and ready with the help of the wily Joan Maycott, wife of one of the whiskey boys to foment trouble in the financial markets, possibly causing the failure of Hamilton's bank. Like all of Liss' novels, this one has a remarkably complex plot, but it's so rich in fascinating detail about the early days of stock trading, about the Federalist movement, and about whiskey making that one hardly minds getting lost in the plot machinations now and again. But Liss brings it all together in the end, uniting multiple narrators and different time lines in a bravura finish. Yes, Saunders is an American version of Benjamin Weaver, but who's complaining? A raucous mix of historical fiction and action-adventure thriller. --Booklist. (Check catalog)