In the company of others : a Father Tim novel

 by Jan Karon. Father Tim Kavanagh first appeared in Karon's popular Mitford series, which focused on small-town life in rural North Carolina, and later launched his own series in Home to Holly Springs. This new novel finds him grudgingly traveling with his wife in Ireland. A series of mishaps leaves the Kavanaghs at an Irish lodge for the entire vacation, allowing them time to become caught up in the lives of the owners, uncovering old secrets and finding resolutions to generational conflicts. Verdict Travel might not suit Father Tim, but the new setting breathes new life into Karon's stories. The novel is at its best when the Irish characters are on stage, especially those whose story is told through an old journal. Fans will want to continue the series; enough backstory is provided to make this accessible to new readers. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

The Finkler question

 by Howard Jacobson. Julian Treslove is plagued by the notion that his life lacks substance. He has had only the most superficial relationships with women, two of whom bore him sons he has hardly seen, and his career is at an impasse, for he now makes his living as a celebrity double. He longs for the tangible lives of his best friends, both Jewish widowers. Middle-aged Sam Finkler is a wildly successful TV personality and author whose wife succumbed to cancer, while octogenarian Libor Sevick has lost the woman he was happily married to for more than 50 years. Julian becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming Jewish as a way to give his life meaning and embarks on a personal odyssey in which he learns Yiddish, takes a Jewish lover, and becomes involved with the Museum of Anglo-Jewish Culture. Jacobson uses Julian's transformation as a way of examining, often with a mordant wit reminiscent of comedian Larry David's, what it means to be Jewish. Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, this novel also offers poignant insights into the indignities of aging, the competitiveness of male friendship, and the yearning to belong. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Hell's corner

 by David Baldacci. Shortly after the events related in Divine Justice (2008), Oliver Stone, former CIA assassin and now the leader of the shadowy group known as the Camel Club, is whisked away to a top-secret meeting with the president of the U.S. Russian drug cartels are operating on American soil, possibly with the approval if not the direct supervision of the Russian government. Stone's mission is to go to the drugs' point of entry, Latin America, and find a way to shut the cartels down. But before he can even begin his mission training, Stone finds himself in the middle of what appears to be a terrorist attack on the life of the British prime minister. Teaming up with a British intelligence agent, Stone attempts to determine if the attack is connected to the Russian drug-smuggling operation. The latest Camel Club novel is, as usual, skillfully constructed and very difficult to put down. Baldacci keeps peeling back layers of Stone's psyche, revealing him to be a man full of unresolved conflicts and a potentially self-destructive amount of guilt over his past actions. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Autobiography of Mark Twain. Volume 1

 In explaining his dissatisfaction with his early attempts to write his life story, Mark Twain blamed the narrowness of the conventional cradle-to-grave format: The side-excursions are the life of our life-voyage, and should be, also, of its history. This volume the first of three makes public autobiographical dictations in which Twain unpredictably pursues the many side-excursions of his remarkably creative life. Embedded in a substantial editorial apparatus, these free-spirited forays expose private aspects of character that the author did not want in print until he had been dead at least a century. Readers see, for instance, a misanthropic Twain consigning man to a status below that of the grubs and worms, as well as a tenderhearted Twain still grieving a year after his wife's death. But on some side-excursions, Twain flashes the irreverent wit that made him famous: Who will not delight in Twain's account of how, as a boy, he gleefully dons the bright parade banner of the local Temperance Lodge, only to shuck his banner upon finding a cigar stub he can light up? But perhaps the most important side-excursions are those retracing the imaginative prospecting of a miner for literary gold, efforts that resulted in such works as Roughing It and Innocents Abroad. A treasure trove for serious Twain readers. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The vigilante's bride

 by Yvonne L. Harris Emily McCarthy needs either a job or a husband. Since teaching posts for women are few and far between, Emily reluctantly accepts the mail-order-bride offer placed in the Chicago Daily Tribune by wealthy Montana rancher Bart Axel. On the way there, her stagecoach is held up. Luke Sullivan never intended to rescue Emily; he simply wanted the money Axel had cheated his father out of years ago. However, when Luke sees Axel's fiancée, he knows Emily has no idea of the kind of man she is about to marry, which leaves Luke with only one option: take Emily with him. Newcomer Harris enriches the plot with plenty of good, old-fashioned western ingredients, including cattle rustling, cowboys and Indians, evil villains, and a conflicted hero who is saved by the love of a good woman. Deftly imbued with both the realistic grit and the courageous spirit of those who settled the West, this is an excellent genre-crossing choice for both romance fans and western readers. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

I remember nothing : and other reflections

 by Nora Ephron.  The legions of readers who loved I Feel Bad about My Neck (2006) will pounce on Ephron's pithy new collection. A master of the jujitsu essay, Ephron leaves us breathless with rueful laughter. As the title suggests, she writes about the weird vagaries of memory as we age, although she is happy to report that the Senior Moment has become the Google Moment. Not that any gadget rescued her when she failed to recognize her own sister. But the truth is, Ephron remembers a lot. Take her stinging reminiscence of her entry into journalism at Newsweek in the early 1960s, when girls, no matter how well qualified, were never considered for reporter positions. An accomplished screenwriter (When Harry Met Sally . . . and Julie & Julia) in a family of screenwriters, Ephron looks further back to her Hollywood childhood and her mother's struggles with alcohol. Whether she takes on bizarre hair problems, culinary disasters, an addiction to online Scrabble, the persistent pain of a divorce, or that mean old devil, age, Ephron is candid, self-deprecating, laser-smart, and hilarious. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Now a popular blogger in addition to everything else, Ephron hit it so big with her last best-seller, a 500,000 print run is planned for her latest. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Life in miniature

 by Linda Schlossberg. Adie is the smallest girl in her sixth-grade class, a fact that makes her something of an outsider. But what really brands her as different is her single-parent mother, who is obsessed with California's drug culture of the 1980s, the milieu in which the story is set. The obsession grows into full-blown paranoia when mom starts to believe she is being stalked by drug dealers and, pulling Adie out of school, takes to the road. The two nomads begin living in motels where, Adie thinks, everything is scaled down, a smaller version of itself. Schlossberg's first novel is told from Adie's point of view and in her first person voice, which means that the girl, unlike the adults they encounter, fails to understand much of what is happening. Yet the mother's mental illness is so blatant that one wonders why no one intervenes and, the mother having quit her job, where the money comes from to support their flight. Despite these improbabilities, the book is inarguably well-written, and Adie becomes a fully realized character whose plight never fails to engage the reader. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Tax savvy for small business : year-round tax advice for small businesses

 by Frederick Daily. Understanding the tax system is vital to the health of every small business. Virtually every decision a business makes has tax consequences that can affect its bottom line -- and the IRS is always watching. Develop the best tax plan for your small business, learn the ins and outs of the tax code, and create comprehensive strategies to get back the most from the IRS with this all-in-one guide. --Publisher (Check catalog)

Unbroken : a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

 by Laura Hillenbrandt. A second book by the author of Seabiscuit (2001) would get noticed, even if it weren't the enthralling and often grim story of Louie Zamperini. An Olympic runner during the 1930s, he flew B-24s during WWII. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he endured a captivity harsh even by Japanese standards and was a physical and mental wreck at the end of the war. He was saved by the influence of Billy Graham, who inspired him to turn his life around, and afterward devoted himself to evangelical speeches and founding boys' camps. Still alive at 93, Zamperini now works with those Japanese individuals and groups who accept responsibility for Japanese mistreatment of POWs and wish to see Japan and the U.S. reconciled. He submitted to 75 interviews with the author as well as contributing a large mass of personal records. Fortunately, the author's skills are as polished as ever, and like its predecessor, this book has an impossible-to-put-down quality that one commonly associates with good thrillers. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This departure from the author's previous best-seller will nevertheless be promoted as necessary reading for the many folks who enjoyed the first one or its movie version. --Booklist    (Check Catalog)

Crooked letter, crooked letter : a novel

 by Tom Franklin. *Starred Review* Rural Mississippi in the 1970s was rife with racial tension, but skin color didn't matter to boyhood companions Silas Jones and Larry Ott. Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother, and Larry, the child of white lower-middle-class parents, were both outsiders, Silas because of his color, Larry because he was quiet and a little odd, his nose always buried in horror novels. The young men's bond strengthened over time, until the night a pretty local girl went on a date with Larry to the drive-in movies and was never heard from again. No body was found and Larry never confessed, but that didn't keep the townspeople from suspecting him. Estranged from his friend, Silas heads off to college in Oxford, Mississippi, and more than 20 years later, returns to take a job as town constable. He sees no reason to contact Larry, who's settled into a lonely existence as a mechanic, unable to escape the relentless whispers and dirty looks. The disappearance of another girl brings the two former friends back together, forcing them to come to terms with buried secrets and dark truths. Edgar Award winner Franklin (Hell at the Breech, 2003) renders luminous prose and a cast of compelling characters in this moody, masterful entry. --Booklist (Check catalog)

How old is the universe?

 by David A. Weintraub. Since astronomers already know the answer to this eponymous question to an accuracy of better than one percent (13.7 billion years), this book might perhaps be more aptly titled How Do We Know How Old the Universe Is? Throughout the text, Weintraub (astronomy, Vanderbilt Univ.; Is Pluto a Planet?: A Historical Journey Through the Solar System) takes the reader steadily outward, explaining step by step how astronomers have gleaned key information from clever observations and a grounding in testable principles of physics. Unfortunately, once he begins his discussion of dark matter (about two-thirds of the way through), the science behind the claims of what is well known goes largely unexplained. Since he has done such a wonderful job of it up to this point, readers may forgive the necessity, especially since a graduate course or two would be required to follow all the intricacies. VERDICT Weintraub outlines the rigorous process astronomers have followed from Earth itself out to the edge of the observable universe and makes it accessible to the science-minded lay reader. Highly recommended. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

The four stages of cruelty

 by Keith Hollihan. Joshua Riff, a 19-year-old convict at Ditmarsh Penitentiary, puzzles Kali Williams, a 39-year-old corrections officer, in Hollihan's impressive first novel, a complex and atmospheric thriller. The other COs are protecting Josh by keeping him segregated in the infirmary next to an enigmatic inmate, Jon Crowley. Josh has been helping Crowley illustrate a densely symbolic comic book based on prison life called The Four Stages of Cruelty, which conjures up history from Ditmarsh's dark past. When Crowley disappears, Williams investigates on her own. The clues take her beneath the prison to the long-abandoned isolation chambers that older convicts refer to as "the City," and from there things really get interesting. Hollihan manages to combine a labyrinthine plot, full of intrigue, secret societies, and arcane lore, with a nuanced, character-driven narrative that provides insights into prison life while keeping readers guessing until the last page. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Dreaming in Chinese : Mandarin lessons in life, love, and language

 by Deborah Fallows. Fallows manages to take the relatively dry subject of translation and create a warm and witty memoir. Dwelling less on her own feelings then on the intricacies of language mastery, she shares experiences after she and her husband moved to China that taught her just how complex Mandarin can be. Such as the fact that there are 400 syllables in Mandarin as opposed to 10 times that number in English, making tone crucial in conversation. Fallows makes all this fascinating by writing in a thoroughly engaging manner that not only invites readers into her experiences, but also delights them with her discoveries. There is confusion with a Cantonese cab driver, the manicurist who envisioned almost perfect happiness, and the employee at Taco Bell who thought Fallows wanted to hug him (she was inquiring about takeout). From observations about maps, naming children, and the struggle over one language for a nation where over 300 million speak something other than Mandarin, Fallows takes readers on a ride through Chinese culture that is as entertaining as it is informative. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

An object of beauty : a novel

 by Steve Martin. This thoroughly engaging primer on the art world is unusual on a number of levels. Although the lead characters are unlikable, the novel is hard to put down, offers an enlightening explication of how the market for art is created, and includes photos and absorbing detail on many of the artworks under discussion. The narrator, Daniel Franks, is an arts journalist who relates the story of avaricious, amoral Lacey Yeager, who is willing to do almost anything to move ahead in the art world. After landing an entry-level job at Sotheby's, where her stint cataloging dusty works in the basement helps develop her eye for good art, Lacey moves on to working in a gallery, where she makes many important connections among collectors and dealers before opening her own gallery in Chelsea. Along the way, she sleeps with artists, collectors, and, finally, an FBI agent who investigates malfeasance in the art world. This page-turner is likely to make readers feel like they have been given a backstage pass to an elite world few are privileged to observe. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The best-selling author draws on his experience as a renowned art collector for this clever, convincingly detailed depiction of NYC's art scene. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Jimmy Carter

 by Julian E. Zelizer. This latest volume in the Holt series of compact biographies of American presidents is written by a Princeton professor of history. When politicians, pundits, and even historians speak of a failed presidency, the Carter administration is often cited. The term may be simplistic, even unfair, yet this engaging survey indicates that it is a resonably accurate description of Carter's single term. Zelizer pays sufficient attention to Carter's youth, his rise through Georgia politics, and his postpresidential efforts at international mediation. But the most engrossing portion of the work deals with Carter's successes (there were some) and failures as president. He campaigned and won as a political outsider; unfortunately, he was unable to learn that he couldn't govern as an outsider. He lacked the traditional ties to the core elements of the Democratic Party. When the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan eroded his support among independent voters, he lacked a hard-core base to rally behind him. For general readers, this work offers a fine analysis of the man and his career. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Scarlet nights : an Edilean novel

 by Jude Deveraux. Undercover detective extraordinaire Mike Newland's new and urgent case sends him from Ft. Lauderdale to Edilean, Virginia, the setting for Deveraux's popular series. His job is to protect Sara Shaw, whose fiancé Greg is part of the notorious Vandlo crime family. Everyone in Edilean hates Greg except Sara, who stubbornly believes in Greg even after he disappears weeks away from their wedding. Mike figures it will be easy to get Sara to trust him; women have always been attracted to him. But Sara is the exception. Weary of being seen as weak, she believes hunky Mike, brother of her best friend, has been sent to tempt her away from marrying Greg. The longer Mike stays, however, the more appealing he becomes to Sara, and soon they begin revealing secrets to each other, including Mike's true mission. As Deveraux continues her series, she brings to life the sort of sweet and spunky heroines who attract the muscular men her fans expect and enjoy. So this is another guilty-pleasure romance of suspense that will hook readers and leave them with a smile. --Booklist. (Check catalog)

J.K. Lasser's your income tax

 A guide to income tax returns provides information on the most recent tax legislation, tax-filing tips, advice on how to reduce tax liabilities, helpful financial advice, and sample tax forms, worksheets, and charts. (Check Catalog)

Rescue : a novel

 by Anita Shreve.  Paramedic Pete Webster is worried sick about his daughter, Rowan, a high-school senior whom he has raised single-handedly ever since she was two. Rowan has adopted very untypical behavior, ignoring her studies and drinking heavily. It brings back bad memories of his ex-wife, Sheila. He pulled her from a car wreck while on the job and soon fell madly in love with her both for her beauty and her irreverent sense of humor. When she became pregnant, he married her though he was only 21. They were very happy until Sheila began drinking all day, every day. Now Pete is worried that their daughter believes she is doomed to repeat her mother's mistakes; he decides to contact Sheila, whom he has not seen or heard from for 16 years. The prolific Shreve brings her customary care to this thoroughly absorbing, perfectly paced domestic drama. Alternating between the life-and-death scenarios Pete encounters on the job and the fraught family tension between father and daughter, Shreve pulls readers right into her story. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)