Glock : the rise of America's gun

 by Paul Barrett,  As most people probably know, America's gun, so called here because it is the sidearm most favored by law enforcement, the criminal element, and the entertainment industry, is not an American weapon. It's Austrian, designed 30-odd years ago by a radiator-factory manager who didn't know enough about guns to know he was breaking all kinds of rules when he built the thing. The Glock, named for its inventor, was a lame-duck entry in an open competition to design a new sidearm for the army. To the surprise of everyone, the Glock was named the winner. A handful of years later, the FBI, reeling from the massacre of several of its agents by better-armed criminals, was in the market for a new, more effective sidearm. They, like the Austrian army, chose the Glock for its simplicity of design, its near-perfect performance, and its ability to hold more ammunition than the standard revolver. This was the jumping-off point for a marketing blitz that catapulted Glock to international superstardom. The book is an informative, frequently surprising account of the evolution of America's gun culture and the gun that helped define it. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The orphan master's son : a novel

 by Adam Johnson.  Pak Jun Do lives with his father at a North Korean work camp for orphans. In a nation in which every citizen serves the state, orphans routinely get the most dangerous jobs. So it is for Jun Do, who becomes a tunnel soldier, trained to fight in complete darkness in the tunnels beneath the DMZ. But he is reassigned as a kidnapper, snatching Japanese citizens with special skills, such as a particular opera singer or sushi chef. Failure as a kidnapper could lead directly to the prison mines. But in Johnson's fantastical, careening tale, Jun Do manages to impersonate Commander Ga, the country's greatest military hero, rival of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il and husband of Sun Moon, North Korea's only movie star. Informed by extensive research and travel to perhaps the most secretive nation on earth, Johnson has created a remarkable novel that encourages the willing suspension of disbelief. As Jun Do, speaking as Ga, puts it, people have been trained to accept any reality presented to them. Johnson winningly employs different voices, with the propagandizing national radio station serving as a mad Greek chorus. Descriptions of everyday privations and barbarities are matter of fact, and Jun Do's love for Sun Moon reads like a fairy tale. Part adventure, part coming-of-age tale, and part romance, The Orphan Master's Son is a triumph on every level. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Invisible men : men's inner lives and the consequences of silence

 by Michael E. Addis Drawing from decades of research and clinical practice focused on men's mental health, Addis (psychology, Clark University) offers ample evidence of the negative consequences of socializing men to ignore or repress their feelings. The damage to men's physical and mental well-being, to their relationships, and to society as a whole, he argues, compels us to change how boys and men are raised and treated. Social learning and systems theories underlie the easy, nonthreatening strategies for addressing men's silence, and are designed for men as well as those who care about them. Each chapter is augmented by reference notes and an excellent summarization of the main points. The book concludes by making the case for addressing men's emotional invisibility as a public health issue with statistical links to school and societal violence, suicide and divorce rates, and addictions to drugs and alcohol. The volume could have been improved by a list of recommended readings. VERDICT Highly recommended for general readers and mental health professionals alike. Provides accessible rationales and strategies, based on extensive research and experience, for addressing this set of personal and societal issues. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

The last nude

 by Ellis Avery. Those eyes! Those lips! That hair! Tamara de Lempicka's iconic Jazz Age paintings that immortalize Rafaela Fano in her nude glory (especially The Dream and La Belle Rafaela) now see glittering, luminescent life in Avery's novel, a riveting lesbian love story of heart-stopping passion, rapture, and stunning duplicity. In 1920s Paris, Tamara, her world lost to WWI, is painting for anyone who'd lost a world, too . . . making our heaven myself, stroke by stroke. Avery (The Teahouse Fire, 2007) places lovers Tamara and Rafaela within a richly portrayed circle of cultural touchstones, including Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Beach, the American expat who published James Joyce's Ulysses and founded Shakespeare & Co., a bookstore-haven for artistic souls. Against that brightly pigmented background, this artist-model lovers' tale is as subtle and seductive as the silk Rafaela listens to with her hands as she designs a slip for her beloved, as stirring as Rafaela (whose survival depends on her beauty), radiant after her first sex for pleasure, seeing Paris, a rose-windowed city, and thinking, This always. Just this. Avery's breathtaking shimmer of first love and its aftermath will turn heads. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Learning to live out loud : a memoir

 by Piper Laurie.  The author is probably familiar to most readers as Carrie White's mother in 1976's Carrie (for which she received the second of her three Oscar nominations) and for her role in the television series Twin Peaks (for which she was nominated twice for an Emmy Award). But Laurie has been acting since she was a girl, securing a contract with Universal-International when she was 17 years old and appearing in such films as The Hustler (which brought her first Oscar nomination) and Children of a Lesser God (her third nomination). Although the story she tells is clearly weighted toward her professional life, she does touch on personal details: her antagonistic relationship with Tony Curtis; her brief romantic dalliance with Ronald Reagan (in which the future president is portrayed as cold, cruel, and egotistical); her marriage; her 15-year hiatus from movie roles; and her rather unusual childhood (which saw Laurie and her sister being sent to live at the Reslocks sanitarium, described as an institutional home for children ). All in all, an involving and occasionally moving life story. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Hope : a tragedy : a novel

 by Shalom Auslander.  Given his audaciously funny memoir, Foreskin's Lament (2007), it isn't surprising that Auslander's first novel is defiantly hilarious, but its riotous and downright sacrilegious satire wildly exceeds expectations. Solomon Kugel has moved his family out of the city and into an old upstate farmhouse. All should be idyllic, but Kugel's mother has delusions of being a Holocaust survivor, and the house is plagued with a terrible smell. Once Kugel, a champion worrier, whose psychoanalyst tells him that hope is a malady, discovers that a veritable Holocaust saint is living in his attic, life becomes antic and impossibly complicated. As his hapless hero tries to do right, Auslander orchestrates a mission of desecration. Spouting painfully nervy puns ( Auschwitz happens ) and cracking bad jokes about gluten intolerance and how he wouldn't even have made it to head shaving in the camps, Kugel mocks the Misery Olympics of Jewish laments and demolishes the entire concept of remembrance. Along with its lacerating irreverence and tonic comedy of angst, Auslander's devilishly cunning, sure-to-be controversial novel poses profound questions about meaning, justice, truth, and responsibility. --Boooklist (Check catalog)

In our prime : the invention of middle age

 by Patricia Cohen. As those at the tail of the baby boom approach age 50, New York Times culture reporter Cohen lays out the history and current conditions of midlife, from the mid-19th century to the present. Framed by the large-scale, ongoing research project Midlife in the United States, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, her book addresses the "midlife crisis" (largely fictitious or misidentified), the boom of anti-aging "self-improvement" industries, and gaps between myth and media portrayals and everyday reality regarding health, sexuality, and economic power. Our concept of middle age is persistent but ill-defined (Cohen notes that those who learned of her research topic inevitably asked, "When is it?"). Today's adults make choices that belie age-based descriptions of life stages. The digital revolution, multiplication of media outlets, and diversification of the population guarantee that contemporary Americans' midlife experiences will be heterogeneous. From generation to generation, middle age less defines its constituents than is defined by them. VERDICT This is an illuminating social history for students, social scientists, and all those who wonder whether they are middle-aged. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

American dervish : a novel

 by Ayad Akhtar Haunted by guilt, Hayat Shah remembers growing up in Milwaukee in the early 1980s, dazzled by Mina, gifted and gorgeous, his mother's beloved friend from Pakistan, who fled abuse back home for being too smart. When she moves into Hayat's home with her small son, Hayat is smitten by Mina's beauty and by all that she teaches him (and the reader) about the richness of the Qur'an: for Mina, faith is about personal interpretation, not about the outer forms; she does not wear a headscarf. But when she falls in love with physician Nathan Wolfson, Hayat's dad's Jewish partner, and plans to marry him, Hayat is wildly jealous. Many readers will recognize the extremist rants by and about Christians, Muslims, and Jews, from all sides. But the people at home move beyond the stereotypes, including Hayat's atheist womanizer dad, who hates the racist extremists. The young teen's personal story about growing up in Muslim America is both particular and universal, with intense connections of faith, sorrow, tenderness, anger, betrayal, questioning, and love. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The magic room : a story about the love we wish for our daughters

 by Jeffrey Zaslow. In the small town of Fowler, MI, Becker's Bridal has served over 100,000 brides-to-be since the mid-1930s. Along the way, fashions and customs have changed as brides have visited the store's so-called Magic Room to gaze at endless mirrored images of themselves in their wedding gown, an apt metaphor for Zaslow (columnist, Wall Street Journal; The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship) as they reflect on their lives, relationships, and dreams for the future. Zaslow shadows half a dozen of the women who go to Becker's Bridal, listening to their stories and writing a compelling and sincere chronology of the experiences, tragedies, and love that led them to the shop. His narrative is sprinkled with fascinating statistical information concerning marriage and divorce, as well as his cultural analysis and observations concerning family and spousal relationships and insights into the lives and relationships of the four generations of Becker women who have worked at the store. VERDICT Not an examination of today's marriage industry but a study of individual lives and dreams, this is recommended for casual readers and those with an interest in cultural and social customs concerning marriage, women's roles, and parent-child relationships. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

The London train

 by Tessa Hadley.  In what seems at first a bifurcated novel, both protagonists take the London train. Paul, a writer with two small daughters in his second marriage, travels from his home in Wales to London to find his pregnant 20-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Poised on the brink of freedom, he temporarily leaves his new family behind. Cora, an English teacher who traveled from her London flat to Cardiff to remodel her late parents' home, in which she now lives, is poised to divorce her senior civil servant husband, who's embroiled in an increasingly volatile investigation. Years before, Paul's and Cora's lives intersected when they met on the London train. In spare, incisive prose, Hadley (The Master Bedroom, 2008) probes this pair of only children marked by the deaths of their mothers, playing with chronology to lay open the pasts that shaped them. This is a keenly perceptive and wise novel, illustrating that however important the past is in our lives, only the present, glimpsed in the final pages, truly matters. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Your playlist can change your life : ten proven ways your favorite music can revolutionize your health, memory, organization, alertness, and more

 by Galina Mindlin. This distinctive book comes from the coordinated efforts of Mindlin (psychiatry, Columbia Univ.), Don DuRousseau (executive director, PEAK Neurotraining Solutions), and Joseph Cardillo (Be Like Water: Practical Wisdom from the Martial Arts), who propose that readers can use music to relieve anxiety, increase alertness, feel happier, and sharpen memory. The process involves picking songs you like, taking note of how the songs work, and then using them to create a particular mood or spirit. The authors provide numerous exercises, personal examples, and sample play-lists for specific moods (e.g., getting rid of the blahs, relaxing before tests, and revving up lunch breaks). Although many readers have already found that playing "Johnny B. Goode" can transform washing the kitchen floor into dancing at a night club, this title lends a psychologist's perspective to a common behavior-well worth the purchase. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

A different sky

 by Meira Chand.  A sweeping novel that spans 30 years in the lives of three central characters, A Different Sky is a fully engaging experience. The protagonists are richly and deeply drawn; the sights, sounds, and smells of Singapore are gorgeously rendered; and the principal characters' interwoven stories combine to form a compelling narrative. On an island, a family's history is often as convoluted as the city-state's, and the three central stories revolve around the concept of belonging. Set against a tumultuous backdrop of Communist revolutions, WWII, and a nation's struggle for independence, Howard, Raj, and Mei Lan's stories intersect in some decidedly unexpected ways. A dozen supporting characters round out the work, providing unique perspectives on the weighty issues of cultural identity, the importance of tradition, and individual betterment. Chand's extensive knowledge of Singapore's eccentricities brilliantly colors the novel, adding an indelible layer of authenticity to the central stories. Fans of Tara Hyland and other readers of historical fiction should find this novel an emotionally satisfying and historically enlightening experience. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Teaching America : the case for civic education

 The American experiment in self-governance relies on a citizenry conversant in American history and government process. Feith (assistant editorial features editor, Wall Street Journal) and his knowledgeable group of contributors-public officials, law and education scholars, and educators-sound the alarm with impressive clarity about the current state of American civic literacy. Their case is straightforward and without divisive rhetoric. The included essays explore the historical place of civic literacy within the American education system, look at current and past government programs intended to effect civic literacy, present snapshots of existing civic-education programs in K-12 and higher education, and consider options for the future. Verdict A well-documented case for civic-education reform articulated by policymakers, lawyers, educators, and academics who share their expertise and involvement with government programs and relevant curricula. This collection is distinctive for its breadth of coverage and the first-hand expertise and knowledge of its contributors. Highly recommended for students in education and teacher preparation. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

An Amish wedding

 by Kelly Long.  Fans of Amish fiction will find triple the enjoyment here thanks to this gathering of novellas in one book. The trio of stories-all by accomplished writers of Amish fiction-create a tight braid of friendship and love as three young women follow their hearts despite bumps in the road. Rose Bender and Luke Raber have been friends forever, but their impending marriage leaves Rose yearning for more. A mysterious thief who seems strangely familiar to Rose sets her on a journey of discovery. Rose's best friend, Priscilla, is about to wed Chester Lapp, but unfortunate events-from finding her wedding dress cut up for doll clothes to an odd case of hiccups-have the pair wondering if their marriage is doomed. Naomi King, Priscilla's sister, seems happy living in the daadi haus and selling baked goods until Zeke Lapp arrives for his cousin Chester's wedding. Can Naomi get past a broken heart to let Zeke in? A satisfying addition to the popular Amish genre. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Knocking on heaven's door : how physics and scientific thinking illuminate the universe and the modern world

 by Lisa Randall. To explain how science works, Randall analyzes the way two researchers at Bell Labs turned the annoying static coming through their radio telescope into a cosmic breakthrough. For in this piquant episode and others that Randall examines science advances by testing theoretical ingenuity against technologically acquired data. Readers gain some historical perspective on this process by revisiting Galileo, who used the telescope to verify Copernican thinking about the heavens and devised an early microscope to assess new ideas about the structural variation of bones. Randall indeed credits Galileo with having recognized the critical importance of scale in shaping fruitful scientific inquiries. And she anticipates acute challenges for twenty-first-century scientists pursuing science at scales both astonishingly large and incomprehensibly small. For data coming from the new Planck and Herschel satellites and from Europe's powerful new Large Hadron Collider will soon compel scientists to look anew at theoretical conjectures about the atom and the universe (or multiverse). As someone who helped forge some of these conjectures, Randall offers an insider's perspective into this cutting-edge science. Yet she illuminates that science with lucid language, laced with references to popular culture, political controversy, and even comic-strip art. The general reader's indispensable passport to the frontiers of science. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The death of King Arthur

 by Peter Ackroyd.  Most of us know Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur from T.H. White's The Once and Future King or the musical Camelot. This new version by Ackroyd (The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling) isn't intended to improve on White. It's a modern retelling of the central Arthurian story lines. Arthur becomes king by pulling a sword out of a stone, and he sets up a round table of 150 knights to keep order in the kingdom but is betrayed by his bastard son, Mordred. Sir Lancelot, meanwhile, acts the perfect knight, but his illicit love for Queen Guinevere prevents him from ever attaining the Holy Grail: that privilege is reserved for Galahad, who's still a virgin. Malory's basic story (with obscure language and additional details removed by Ackroyd) should seem old now, but it doesn't. Ackroyd's retelling retains the Christian and chivalric sensibilities of the original but updates the language and cuts out repetition. The result is sheer enjoyment, with notable characters and a narrative that pulls in the reader. And what tales these are-knights fighting for honor, magical potions and poisoned lances, unrequited love, and vile deceit! No one could have done it better than Ackroyd. VERDICT Not a scholarly retelling but a popular one, this story should attract an unexpectedly wide audience. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Sybil: the extraordinary story behind the famous multiple personality case

 by Debbie Nathan Much continues to be written about multiple personality disorder (MPD), now renamed dissociative identity disorder. Without much effort, readers can find information about the clinical phenomenology of MPD. It is the cases the personal stories that have etched MPD into the popular culture. Although the book Sybil was published in 1973, the name Sybil is still synonymous with this disorder. Now, award-winning journalist Nathan meticulously turns the iconic case on its head. To some degree, this is investigative journalism at its best. After all, who among us isn't fascinated by the myths, controversies, and comments that continue to accompany the story of Shirley Ardell Mason, aka Sybil ? Readers interested in popular culture and in the mental-health profession will not be disappointed. Neither will readers interested in following an unusual story back to its roots. Nathan does not attempt to provide a broad grounding in the recognition and treatment of MPD. Regardless, this much is clear: research evidence shows that MPD is quite common, and dissociation is a common feature of many other psychiatric disorders. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Broken

 by Susan Jane Bigleow.  In a future where the United States is a burned-out backwater and a single fascist government rules humanity and its colonies, Broken, a derelict superheroine who has lost the power to fly, and Michael Forward, a clairvoyant teenager, race to save a boy from those who want to turn him into a tyrant. As they flee government thugs, bloodthirsty separatist soldiers, and Broken's former lover, a superhero gone bad, Broken and Michael must come to terms with their painful pasts and with choosing between doing what is easy and pleasant and doing what is right. Bigelow's action-packed, fast-flying debut is buttressed by a believable, detailed world and populated by a cast of unforgettable, deeply realized characters. Her unusual and heartfelt take on superheroes underscores what makes these iconic characters heroic-and what makes them profoundly human. --Publishers Weekly (Check catalog)

Steve Jobs

 by Walter Isaacson. Now we all know how the story ends. But that only adds a certain frisson to this biography of the man who was determined to make a dent in reality. Shaping reality was what Jobs was about, not only in his extraordinary vision of how personal computers could remake the world but also in his personal life, where early forays into Eastern mysticism led to belief in what Star Trek called a reality distortion field Jobs believed reality was malleable and made others believe it, too. The book is filled with examples of projects that seemed impossible to complete but were completed and goals that appeared unachievable but were achieved all because Jobs insisted it could be done. Yet Jobs was no saint. Isaacson (along with many of Jobs' friends) posits that being given up for adoption gave him a brittle, callous edge, which likely led him to abandon a daughter he had out of wedlock. Juxatposed against Jobs' story are contrasting profiles of Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, the actual engineer, who would benignly have given away the specs for designing personal computers (he did give low-level associates some of his Apple shares before it it went public), and Bill Gates, at different times Jobs' partner and rival. Isaacson, who has previously written about long-gone geniuses Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, benefits this time from contact with his subject. Jobs gave the author 40 interviews for this book and asked his family and associates to cooperate. The result is a wonderfully robust biography that not only tracks Jobs' life but also serves as a history of digital technology. What makes the book come alive, though, is Isaacson's ability to shape the story as a kind of archetypal fantasy: the flawed hero, the noble quest, the holy grail, the death of the king. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Robert Ludlum's The Ares decision

 by Kyle Mills.   The latest Covert One thriller brings back Colonel Jon Smith and his cohorts in a tight and tense page-turner. A Special Forces team is sent to Uganda to eliminate a terrorist, but instead of taking him out, the entire squad is decimated. When Smith begins to investigate, the one surviving member commits suicide. Video surveillance seems to indicate the use of a parasite for controlling unwilling subjects. Smith recruits an expert in the field of parasitology along with an old friend to solve the bizarre puzzle and stop a madman from utilizing the bug as a weapon. Various subplots abound as well, adding to the complexity of the narrative. Mills is a fine writer of his action-centered thrillers in his own right, and he makes an inspired choice to continue the Ludlum-based series. This eighth Covert One novel is one of the best since Gayle Lynds was at the helm. Fans of the Ludlum style will have nothing but praise for this one. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)

 by Mindy Kaling.  In the conspiratorial tones of a cool older or younger sister or pal, familiar to her twitter followers, Kaling, best-known as a writer-actress on the American version of The Office, traces her path from sensitive, chubby, Indian girl to woman-about-town in TV's comedy scene. In observant, bracingly hilarious, and surprisingly poignant essays and lists, Kaling gives her opinions on life, love, and the ridiculous amount of time it takes men to put on their shoes without holding back. That's not to say she isn't gracious about her family, friends, and coworkers (except frenemy Rainn Wilson) and ultimately reserves her best ribbing for herself. Also strewn throughout the memoir are some of the most adorable (read embarrassing) photos of herself. The showstopper on the back cover depicts her as a coke-bottle-glasses-wearing, androgynous child holding a puppet. To a year noteworthy for great funny ladies dishing about life in the biz, including the likes of Tina Fey and Jane Lynch, Kaling is an exciting addition. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

11/22/63 : a novel

 by Stephen King.  Like the similarly sprawling Under the Dome (2009), this novel was abandoned by King decades ago before he took another shot, and perhaps that accounts for both novels' intoxicating, early-King bouquet of ambition and swagger. In this distant cousin to The Dead Zone (1979), Jake Epping is living a normal schoolteacher's life when a short-order cook named Al introduces him to a time warp hidden in a diner pantry leading directly to 11:58 a.m., September 9, 1958. Al's dying of cancer, which means he needs a successor to carry out his grand mission: kill Lee Harvey Oswald so that the 1963 JFK assassination never happens. Jake takes the plunge and finds two things he never expected: true love and the fact that the obdurate past doesn't want to change. The roadblocks King throws into Jake's path are fairly ingenious some of them are outright gut-punches while history buffs will dig the upside-down travelogue of Oswald's life. This doesn't loom as large as some King epics; on the other hand, did we appreciate It in 1986 as much as we do now? Leave it at this: fans will love it. High-Demand Backstory: King is his own backstory: demand for anything new will be loud. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Catherine the Great : portrait of a woman

 by Robert K. Massie. The popularity of Massie's biographies of Russian czars presages a comparable reception for his presentation of Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, as Catherine the Great was originally named. She appeals to readers for several reasons. Those interested in the expansion and development of the Russian Empire under her reign (1762-96) can delve into her conduct of war and diplomacy, cultivation of Enlightenment notables, and attempted reforms of law and government. And those fascinated by the intimate intrigues of dynasties will find an extraordinary example in Catherine's ascent from minor German princess to absolute autocrat of Russia. Court life is Massie's strong suit, though, which he develops with a well-referenced thoroughness that begins with Catherine's own account (The Memoirs of Catherine the Great, Mark Cruse, ed., 2005) of surviving palace politics as consort to the eccentric and disliked crown prince, Paul. The memoir, which suspends in 1758, alludes to another aspect of Catherine that tantalizes royalty readers, her liaisons with courtiers, most famously, Grigory Potemkin. Massie's treatment of them proves sympathetically perceptive to Catherine's warmth and her estrangement from them, humanizing the real woman behind the imperial persona. Written dramatically and almost visually, Massie's Catherine may attain the classic status that his Peter the Great (1980) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1967) already have. --Booklist (Check catalog)