The wolf and the watchman : a father, a son, and the CIA

by Scott C. Johnson      (Get the Book)
When Johnson was a teenager living in suburban Detroit after years of living in exotic places around the world, his father revealed the secret that had guided their lives: he was a CIA agent. That revelation gave Johnson license to deceive and cover up as well, joining his father in a double life. Feelings of fear and isolation never left him, even later as he pursued a career as a journalist. As a foreign correspondent, he found astounding parallels between his father's work and his own, including source development and the sometimes clandestine nature of the work. Johnson traces his life as son and journalist from the U.S. to Mexico to the Middle East and Europe, tracking secrets and wondering about the morality and authenticity of his and his father's lives together and apart. He ponders the impact of secretiveness on his father's marriages and on his own failed relationships. An enthralling look at a complicated father-son relationship and a painful investigation of the messiness of truth in journalism, intelligence ops, and life. --Booklist

The son : a novel

by Philip Meyer    (Get the Book)
Inside Meyer's massive Texas saga is perhaps the best Indian captive story ever written: in 1849, 13-year-old Eli McCullough is abducted by Comanches after they've raped his mother and sister. Eli adapts. He learns the language and how to hunt and raid, and by age 16, he's a fierce warrior. In the process, the reader is treated to a fascinating portrait of the Comanches, including a Melville-like cataloging of all they did with the buffalo. Eventually, young Eli returns to the white world, but after an affair with a judge's wife worthy of Little Big Man, he's forced into the Texas Rangers. Later still, he fights for the South and steals a fortune from the North. He returns to South Texas to found an unimaginably large ranch, which he adds to by trumping up a massacre of a distinguished Mexican family, the Garcias. No scion measures up to Eli, unless it's Jeanne, his great-granddaughter, who ruthlessly presides over her oil and gas well into the twenty-first century. And, in a different way, Peter, Eli's son, as softhearted as his father was ruthless, makes his mark. He alone laments the massacre of the Garcias, but he's an indifferent rancher, and his love affair with the only surviving Garcia threatens to disembowel the McCullough empire. If you want to build a place like Texas, Meyer seems to say, only ruthlessness will suffice. In his many pages, Meyer takes time to be critical of Edna Ferber, but his tale is best compared to Giant. Lonesome Dove also come to mind, as well as the novels of Douglas C. Jones, Alan LeMay, and Benjamin Capps. --Booklist

I brake for yard sales and flea markets, thrift shops, auctions, and the occasional dumpster

by Lara Spencer    (Get the Book)
Good Morning America co-anchor Lara Spencer is a life-long yard saler. She grew up happily following her mom to garage sales, auctions, flea markets, and thrift stores, and on the way, learned what to look for and how to turn those second-hand finds into stylish interior design. For Spencer, a former host of Antiques Roadshow, "junque" hunting is more than a hobby. She moonlights as an antiques dealer and interior designer, and clients often can't believe the down-and-dirty provenance of each treasure. Spencer also explains how to rescue, recycle, and reinvent secondhand items and details the simple fixes that turn someone else's trash into your instant heirloom.--From publisher description.

Transatlantic : a novel

by Colum McCann    (Get the Book)
In 1919, British aviators Alcock and Brown made the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland. McCann, in his first novel since the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin (2009), imagines a letter handed to Brown by a young photographer, written by her mother, Emily, a local reporter covering the flight, to be delivered upon their landing to a family in Cork. Years earlier, while on a speaking tour in Ireland with the mission to raise money for the abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass forms a bond with young Isabel, the daughter of his host family in Cork. Lily, a young servant, emboldened by Douglass' visit, sets out for America, in the hope of a better life. About a century and a half later, former Senate majority leader George Mitchell is coaxed out of retirement to broker talks between the various factions, with the intention of getting a peace agreement by Good Friday. At the tennis club, he meets a woman in her nineties who, years earlier, had lost her grandson to the Troubles. It is Lily and her offspring's stories set across different times and in many different places that ultimately tie everything together, as McCann creates complex, vivid characters (historical and otherwise) while expertly mixing fact and fancy to create this emotionally involving and eminently memorable novel. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Prepub buzz about McCann's latest suggests it will be among the summer's leading literary fiction titles. --Booklist

How to run for political office and win : everything you need to know to get elected

by Melanie Wilsonson    (Get the Book)
The American Government, including the national, state, and local levels, has more than 400,000 elected and appointed public officials according to a New York Times estimate. That number, more than the number of people who work for most major companies, is a tell-tale sign of just how important the political system is in this country. To become part of it however, and realize your dream of running and being elected to local office, you need to know exactly what will be expected of you, what is going to come up during the campaign, and how much time and energy the process might take out of your life. This book is written to guide every potential new politician down the path of filing for, gathering support, and running for local office, whether you are a lawman, judge, politician, or concerned parent. You will start by reading a complete list of everything you need to know about the process of running for office, from the rules that govern your conduct, to the timeline you can expect to start living. You will learn how to organize you resources and start hiring campaign staff. You will learn how to start creating a database of donors and individuals who can be called or contacted when drumming up support. You will be walked through the process of dredging up your own past and disclosing everything you can about yourself to offset the potential for negative campaigning by your opponent. Successful local politicians and campaign staff have been interviewed for this book and have provided detailed information about what you can expect when you start the process of running for office, from the door to door walking to the campaign literature and signs that must be created. You will learn the ins and outs of campaign fundraising and how to acquire the best possible endorsements to your campaign. You will learn what events you should be appearing at and how to start gaining access to television commercial air time. Finally, you will be walked through the phone bank and survey process on the road to the primaries and through the primaries to what you can expect on Election Day. From start to finish, you will learn everything you need to know to effectively run and win your campaign for local office with this book. (Summary)

Looking for me

by Beth Hoffman     (Get the Book)
Theodora Teddie Overman runs a successful antiques shop, filling her days with restoration projects and buying trips. But she's having a hard time filling the hole in her heart left by her younger brother, who ran away from home and disappeared at age 17 now presumed dead to live in the wilderness. Teddie was never close to her family, having left home shortly after high-school graduation, determined to make it in the antiques world rather than attend the boring secretarial school her mother had in mind. Now in her midthirties, Teddie misses the chance to reconcile with her estranged mother and becomes obsessed with finding her brother after all these years. Along the way, she finds love and comes to terms with her childhood. Hoffman has a good ear for dialogue, and Teddie and her friends are realistic, appealing characters. Perfect for fans of family-centered women's fiction, this book will have special appeal to readers interested in antiques and shabby chic style. --Booklist

Secret storms

by Julie Mannix von Zerneck    (Get the Book)
In this touching memoir, Julie is 19 when she is sent to a psychiatric institute in 1963 because of an unplanned pregnancy. As a young debutante in Philadelphia, there are things expected of her, and pregnancy out of wedlock isn't one of them. She gives birth to her daughter-whom she names Aimee -but the girl is put up for adoption. After she leaves the institute, Julie marries Frank, the man who got her pregnant, and they both have successful careers in show business. Daughter Aimee is renamed Kathy by her adoptive family and is loved very much. But eventually, Kathy becomes curious about her birth parents and resolves to track them down. The book shifts between sections narrated by mother von Zerneck and daughter Hatfield, and both authors have gripping stories to tell. Readers will delight in their shared narrative, which is as heartwarming as it is engaging. Von Zerneck's life alone would be a fascinating read, but combined with Hatfield's search for her mother it becomes compulsive reading. --Publishers Weekly

The plague of doves

by Louise Erdrich    (Get the Book)
Every so often something shatters like ice and we are in the river of our existence. We are aware. Those are the moments Erdrich captures in this mesmerizing novel set in Pluto, North Dakota, a white town on the edge of an Ojibwe reservation. Founded out of white greed, the town is now dying, deserted by both industry and its young people. Evelina, a girl of mixed Indian and white descent, hears many family stories from her irascible grandfather, Mooshum, who has learned to deal with the deep sorrow in his life by practicing the patient art of ridicule (his sly baiting of the local priest is one of many comic highlights). Evelina also learns about the town's long, bloody history, including the slaughter of a white farm family and the hanging of innocent Native Americans unfairly targeted as the perpetrators of the crime. Over succeeding generations, descendants of both the victims and the lynching party intermarry, creating a tangled history. Throughout Erdrich deploys potent, recurring images a dance performed to thwart the plague of doves destroying crops, the heartbreaking music of a violin, an athletic nun rounding the bases in her flowing habit to communicate the complexity and the mystery of human relationships. With both impeccable comic timing and a powerful sense of the tragic, Erdrich continues to illuminate, in highly original style, the river of our existence. --Booklist

Living in a nutshell : posh and portable decorating ideas for small spaces

by Janet Lee    (Get the Book)
With more than one hundred stylish, innovative projects, this DIY guide serves up decorating ideas that fool the eye into believing a little lair is larger and more glamorous than its four walls. A fireplace on wheels? A chandelier light by Xerox? A shrink-wrapped designer closet? These are just a few of the clever projects in Living in a Nutshell, a DIY guide that helps small-space dwellers bring a greater sense of space, luxury, and personality into their homes. Here are fresh ideas for enhancing every living area of a tiny spaceâ#128;#148;all are easy to do, emphatically affordable, readily portable, and big on style. Gorgeous photographs and a witty, encouraging, conversational text, supplemented by insider tricks of the trade and quick tips on every page, make it fun and simple to create a personal, welcoming home no matter how small or transitional it may be. An illustrated survival tool kit as well as extensive listings of untapped, off-the-beaten-track design resources and a select buying guide for the many products and materials used throughout complete this invaluable book. (Publisher)