Book News and New Book Reviews
Just a sampling of our new materials (right side)!
by Gabrielle Bernstein (Get the Book)
Drawing heavily from the core principles of the popular text A Course in Miracles, Bernstein has developed a six-week "mind cleanse" plan that shifts thought patterns from fear to love. She delightfully warns readers that pursuing this plan may cause miracles, explaining that "each moment you choose love over fear is a miracle." Divided into six chapters, one for each week, the book guides readers through simple but effective daily exercises and practices that progressively build the mental muscles for gratitude, forgiveness, and love-the core precepts for living a miraculous life. The author discovered firsthand that such subtle shifts in thinking don't necessarily change what happens to you in life, but will change how you experience what happens. In turn, these inner shifts allow us to have a greater effect in our society and may even inspire us to become a "miracle worker in the world." Spiritual seekers of any stripe can benefit from following this perky and pragmatic plan outlining a path for radical change-one of transforming fear into love-and perhaps discover lasting happiness along the path. --Publishers Weekly
by Ian Rankin (Get the Book)
Rebus is back! Well, you didn't really think Rankin's cantankerous Edinburgh copper would stay retired, did you? Rankin has moved on since Rebus' retirement party in Exit Music (2008), beginning a new series starring another Edinburgh cop, Malcolm Fox, but Fox couldn't be more different from Rebus: a reformed drunk rather than a functioning one; a rule follower rather than a habitual rule breaker; and, most important, an internal-affairs officer rather than a detective. Oil and water, right? So who could resist the temptation to put them together in the same novel? It turns out Rebus has been spending his time since retirement as a civilian volunteer in a cold-case unit; one of those cold cases, the 15-year-old disappearance of a young woman, turns very hot when Rebus finds a connection to several more recent disappearances. His bloodhound's scent aroused, the detective is on the trail with a vengeance, crossing lines and bending rules just like in his salad days, which, naturally, brings him afoul of Fox, who abhors Rebus' nonconformity and is convinced the maverick must be dirty. (Or is he just jealous of his worst enemy's prowess as a detective?) Crime-fiction readers are trained to hate internal-affairs cops, but Rankin made us see Fox's humanity in The Complaints (2011) and The Impossible Dead (2011); now he sets the IA guy against our favorite bullheaded maverick. Ambiguity has never tasted so bittersweet. A gutsy experiment on Rankin's part and a completely successful one. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Crime-fiction fans will swarm when the news of Rebus' return spreads, and Rankin won't disappoint them. --Booklist
by Hoda Kotb (Get the Book)
Today Show cohost Kotb (Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee) tells the remarkable stories of six people who overcame trials and tragedies to become successful and happy individuals. A decade after the events that rocked their lives, Kotb interviewed each subject about how the passage of time had healed them and changed their perspective. Amy Barnes transformed herself from a 490-pound victim of domestic violence into a bodybuilding personal trainer and public speaker. Patrick Weiland, a television producer, spiraled out of control after he was diagnosed with HIV, and subsequently became addicted to crystal meth. But following the horrific murder of his sister and the realization that "he could not put his family through another catastrophic loss," he resolved to turn his life around. Ron Clifford managed to escape the September 11 attacks only to learn that his sister, Ruth, and four-year-old niece, Juliana, had been on United Flight 175, the second plane to hit the towers. Ten years later, Clifford discusses coping with PTSD and finding closure after testifying against 9/11 mastermind Zacarias Moussaoui. Sobering and inspiring tales in their own right, Kotb's journalistic acumen makes this collection all the more moving. --Publishers weekly
by David John Mark (Get the Book)
Cops in the economically ravaged northern England city of Hull don't know what to think of the new detective who has joined the force. Aector McAvoy is a veritable giant, and there are vague rumors that he was nearly killed bringing down a rogue cop and a contract killer. But in Hull, he is a shy computer wizard who silently wishes he could spend all his time with his pregnant wife and young son. Then there's his name; Hull cops don't know it's a Scots spelling of Hector. But Aector is on the scene when a teenage girl is savagely murdered in Hull's most historic church, and it is Aector who discovers that the girl and subsequent victims were all survivors of previous fatal tragedies. And it is Aector who must end the murderous rampage. First-novelist Mark shrewdly makes Aector an enigma for readers, too, slowly building the conflicted hero throughout the book. Equally shrewdly, he gives Aector a tough and insightful female supervisor, who, after puckishly remarking he should have come with an owner's manual, ultimately unpacks her complex charge. Mark's years as a Hull journalist, his descriptions of a blighted city on the bones of its arse, and winter weather that ranges from merely dismal to brutal burnish an impressive debut. John Harvey readers should take note. --Booklist
by Sonya Lyubomirsi (Get the Book)
In this thought-provoking volume, Lyubomirsky (The How of Happiness), psychology professor at the University of California-Riverside, examines happiness and conventional notions about how it's nurtured in relationships, at work, and in one's own psyche. Many of these beliefs are damaging myths, she opines: while society leads people to believe that happiness will necessarily accompany the achievement of certain life goals-like marriage or the birth of a child-such misconceptions can lead to depression when the expected euphoria fails to arrive. Additionally, the author argues that phenomena that are traditionally viewed as negative (e.g., divorce, illness, job loss) can in fact promote the development of crucial life skills that can lead, in the long run, to a more sustainable form of happiness-one that can cope with adversity rather than break down before it. "We must stop waiting for happiness, and we must stop being terrified of the potential for unhappiness," she notes. "[N]othing in life is as joy-producing or as misery-inducing as we think it is." While remaining sympathetic to her readers' pain, Lyubomirsky demonstrates that positively reframing life events can mine the best out of even the darkest situations. Provocative and fresh. --Publishers Weekly
by James Church (Get the Book)
Church's previous novels featuring North Korean cop Inspector O showcased the endemic paranoia and dysfunction that is bedrock in the most secretive nation on earth. In The Man with the Baltic Stare (2010), O is retired by his government and banished to a mountain-top, only to be called back into service. This time, the guileful and cantankerous O has had to flee his country. He's living with his nephew Bing in a backwater region of northeast China that borders North Korea. Bing is head of state security for the region, and his skill at controlling corruption at the border is all that allows him to keep his job. But a visit by Madam Fang, the most beautiful woman in the world, draws Bing and O into a bizarre quest for an almost unknowable objective, a quest that becomes increasingly more mysterious and hazardous. Bing, who narrates the story, is weighed down by the same obstacles O always faced: misinformation and disinformation about his assignment. As the story progresses, assorted Chinese, Mongol, and Kazakh agents, all maddeningly inscrutable, sow further confusion, making this the most convoluted investigation O has ever faced. The Man with the Baltic Stare was reported to be the final book in the series. Here's hoping Inspector O has merely been transplanted to a new locale and will continue to appear in further adventures. He's one of a kind. --Booklist
by Gordon Corera (Get the Book)
With exotic locales, global intrigue, and state secrets at stake, Corera, a security correspondent for BBC News, highlights the successes and failures of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, from the chaotic years immediately after WWII through the reorganization of the post-9/11 new age of espionage. The author goes for the details with the recruiting of double agents, purchases of top secrets, and key defections in such places as Berlin, Vienna, London, and Moscow, all in a lower dramatic tone than Ian Fleming's Agent 007 or Graham Greene's spy exploits. Corera pays much attention to the huge betrayal of MI6 by Kim Philby and his shrewd KGB handlers; spy queen Daphne Park and her astute Congo-Lumumba connection; the dismal Iraq failure; and the British support of American strikes against al Qaeda . With an update on the revamped MI6 bureau still in "knowledge management," Corera's impressive, solid volume about the British spy agency shows there's still some bite and verve in the old dog yet. --Publishers Weekly
by Jen Lancaster (Get the Book)Lancaster's follow-up to If You Were Here (2011) is a charming comedy in the vein of movies like Big and 13 Going on 30. Twenty years after she ruled her high school with an iron fist, Lissy Ryder finds herself out of work and dumped by her husband, Duke, who was her high-school sweetheart. Lissy decides to start her own PR firm and attends her high-school reunion in the hopes of drumming up business. She's chagrined to find that her now successful schoolmates are still smarting from her high-school cruelty and want nothing to do with her. Only earth-mother Deva deigns to speak to Lissy, offering a solution to her woes: drink a potion that will send her back into the past to undo the misery she caused her classmates. Lissy gamely accepts the challenge, but when she returns to her new present, she's shocked to find how much her life, as well as the lives of her classmates, has changed, and not necessarily for the better. Readers will find it easy to root for the frank and funny heroine of this winsome, whimsical tale. Lancaster's downright fun novel is chick lit at its best. --Booklist
by Amy Webb (Get the Book)
When journalist-turned-consultant Webb ended a serious relationship at age 30, she turned to online dating to seek her match and avoid horrible setups arranged by her mother. The men she meets on JDate and Match.com prove to be disappointments. They are disingenuous about their physical appearance, they stick her with the tab, and one turns out to be married. Rather than being discouraged, however, Webb combines her investigative skills with her mathematical savvy to better understand how online dating sites work, and who is having the most success with them. She creates several male profiles in order to check out how other women are marketing themselves, particularly the women whose profiles pop up right away, indicating they're getting the highest volume of responses. Once she's gathered her data, Webb applies it to her own profile, changing the wording and redoing her pictures. Webb's clever and inventive experiment, as well as her success story, will be inspiring and eye-opening for anyone who has ever turned to one of the many popular online dating sites in search of love. --Booklist
