A far better rest

 by Susanne Alleyn. Sydney Carton, the brooding hero of A Tale of Two Cities, is one of Dickens' best creations. In her first novel, Alleyn has taken Sydney as her central character and imagined his entire life. As in Tale, fate links Carton's path with those of Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette but also with that of many historical figures, such as Desmoulins and Robespierre. After the marriage of Darnay and Lucie, Carton goes off to France, expecting to live an idle life there as well but instead gets caught up in the French Revolution, first by writing for a revolutionary journal and later by being elected to the French National Convention. He even finds love again with a cousin of Darnay named Eleonore. There are some discrepancies between this novel and Tale, and Alleyn takes some liberties with Dickens' characters, but she tells a very good story. Best read alongside Tale, Alleyn's novel gives a vivid picture of the development of the French Revolution through the eyes of that wonderful hero despite himself, Sydney Carton. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Feminism, Inc. : coming of age in girl power media culture

 by Emilie Zaslow. Zaslow (communication, Pace Univ.) provides an excellent introduction to the nascent field of girl studies. In addition to serving as a solid resource on much of the scholarship already published, the book gives voice to a range of girls from New York City, who speak about how they experience feminism and femininity in their everyday lives and about the tensions between messages concerning feminism and femininity often found in today's girl power media culture. Through focus groups and interviews with 30 participants, Zaslow found that girls understand the contradictions inherent in mediated commodification of feminism but yet lack information on how to collectively resolve unfair social structures. Messages about sexuality as empowerment and subjugation feature prominently in these girls' analyses of contemporary mainstream media. Ultimately the role models to which girls have access reinforce the message that girls have to rely on themselves. Neither celebratory nor dystopian, this study provides insights into the intelligence of contemporary girls and their awareness of the pitfalls of popular culture representation, especially in relation to their complicated lives in a cosmopolitan, difficult urban environment. Zaslow's message: though they are neither anti-feminist nor anti-feminine, these girls cannot reconcile conflicting messages. --Choice (Check catalog)

The Prague cemetery

 By Umberto Eco. An amnesiac tries to figure out who he is by writing his thoughts in a diary and explaining who he hates. It is 1897 and he is Captain Simonini, an accomplished forger with a talent for espionage, and he hates nearly everyone: Germans, Italians, Freemasons, Jesuits, women, but especially Jews. But what has caused him to lose his memory? And who is Abbe Dalla Piccola, the clergyman (or false clergyman) who shares his living quarters and seems to know more about our Simonini than Simonini himself? Thus opens Eco's much-anticipated sixth novel, a whirlwind tour of conspiracy and political intrigue that places one cunning and deeply cynical man at the center of a century's worth of diabolical deeds the most terrible of which being the forgery of one of the foundational documents of modern anti-Semitism. In another novelist's hands, the intrigue, mystery, and historical detail might be enough, but this is Eco, after all. Readers able to navigate the author's tricks and traps will find that this dark tale is delightfully embellished with sophisticated and playful commentary on, among other things, Freud, metafiction, and the challenges of historiography. . HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: If sales of the original Italian edition are any indication, librarians should expect considerable reader interest here. --Booklist (Check catalog)

The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration

 by Isabel Wilkerson. From the early twentieth century through its midpoint, some six million black southerners relocated themselves, their labor, and their lives, to the North, changing the course of civil, social, and economic life in the U.S. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wilkerson offers a broad and penetrating look at the Great Migration, a movement without leaders or precedent. Drawing on interviews and archival research, Wilkerson focuses on three individuals with varying reasons for leaving the South the relentless poverty of sharecropping with few other opportunities, escalating racial violence, and greater social and economic prospects in the North. She traces their particular life stories, the sometimes furtive leave-takings; the uncertainties they faced in Chicago, New York, and L.A.; and the excitement and longing for freer, more prosperous lives. She contrasts their hopes and aspirations with the realities of life in northern cities when the jobs eventually evaporated from the inner cities and new challenges arose. Wilkerson intersperses historical detail of the broader movement and the sparks that set off the civil rights era; challenging racial restrictions in the North and South; and the changing dynamics of race, class, geography, politics, and economics. A sweeping and stunning look at a watershed event in U.S. history. --Booklist (Check catalog)

River of smoke

 by Amitav Gosh. Spellbinding and astute, Ghosh continues the nineteenth-century historical saga about the opium trade that he launched with Sea of Poppies (2008). This is an even more fluid and pleasurable tale, however dire its conflicts, and stands firmly on its own, though readers shouldn't miss the first installment. After escaping misery and danger in India, Ghosh's seductive, motley crew of struggling characters has found some semblance of sanctuary in China. Paulette is discovered living in the ruins of a botanical garden by the famous plant-hunter, Fitcher Penrose. They join forces to search for a rare camellia with help from Robin, who finally finds happiness as a gay man in Canton's industrious art world. Neel, the disgraced intellectual raja, is working for Bahram, a well-meaning, wealthy, now-imperiled Indian merchant with an illegitimate Chinese son and a doomed opium business. Ghosh's fascination with the multicultural ferment of Canton inspires thrilling descriptions of everything from local cuisine to the geopolitics of the opium wars. And his delight in language, especially the inventiveness of pidgin, further vitalizes his canny and dazzling tale, which, for all its historical exactitude, subtly reflects the hypocrisy and horrors of today's drug trafficking. With one more novel to go, Ghosh's epic trilogy is on its way to making literary history. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

An invisible thread : the true story of an 11-year-old panhandler, a busy sales executive, and an unlikely meeting with destiny

 by Laura Schroff. According to an old Chinese proverb, there's an invisible thread that connects two people who are destined to meet and influence each other's lives. With Tresniowski (The Vendetta), Schroff tells how, as a busy advertising sales executive in New York, she easily passed panhandlers every day. One day, 11-year-old Maurice's plea for spare change caused Schroff to turn around and offer to buy him lunch. Thereafter, Schroff and Maurice met for dinner each week and slowly shared their life stories. Maurice's tales about his crack addict mother, absent father, and array of drug-dealing uncles were only part of his desperate longing for a life in a safe neighborhood in an apartment with more than one room. As they grow to depend on each other, Maurice asks Schroff to attend his school's parents' night, where his teacher asks Schroff not to abandon the boy. In some weeks, the meals they share become some of the few he has, because any money his mother might "earn" goes to her habit. As Schroff relates Maurice's story, she tells of her own father's alcoholism and abuse, and readers see how desperately these two need each other in this feel-good story about the far-reaching benefits of kindness. --Publishers Weekly (Check catalog)

Angel of darkness

  by Cynthia Eden.  Nicole St. James hadn't figured on falling prey to a vampire. Fighting to stay alive, she catches sight of another man and begs his help, not recognizing he's an angel of death awaiting the inevitable. Keenan has been stalking Nicole for weeks, and his unwilling yearning for her compels him to kill the vampire instead. Retribution for disobedience is swift. Six months later, Keenan, now one of the Fallen, is drowning his sorrows when Nicole struts into the bar, manifestly no longer human. Keenan doesn't know that Nicole is wanted for the murders she committed as a neophyte vampire, while Nicole is unaware that Keenan can regain his angelic status if he kills her. Motorcycle chases, bar fights, and Keenan's discovery of lust drive this crisp, heart-pounding, smart thriller. Eden doesn't bring much that's new, but she puts it together far better than most. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

Republic, lost : how money corrupts Congress--and a plan to stop it

 by Lawrence Lessig. You may call it "dependence corruption," but it's still corruption-the dependence of Congress on campaign contributors to get their message out and the dependence on the voters to elect them on that message. Lessig (Remix) distinguishes between a commercial economy (or quid pro quo), and a gift economy that cements a relationship of obligation. He argues that campaign finance reform will never work as long as politicians know who is donating to their cause, and sometimes even if they know someone is donating, or even threatening to donate, to their opponent's cause. In Washington's vicious circle, a lobbyist has a fundraiser for a candidate because (s)he serves on a certain committee and a Congressional representative knows which lobbyist and which corporation to ask for contributions because (s)he knows they share interests. Lessig proffers interesting solutions, but grants only a 10% chance that one or all of them might help. Though parts of the book are bogged down in lawyerly rhetoric, it will reward readers with insight into the morass that is Washington, though not necessarily hope. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)

The Christmas shoppe

 by Melody Carlson. The residents of a small town learn that things are not always as they appear in this latest Christmas novella (after Christmas at Harrington's) by Romantic Times award winner Carlson. Matilda Honeycutt moves to Parish Springs, but the townsfolk are put off by her unkempt looks and even more so by the junk shop she has opened. Their opinions of both change, however, when folks begin visiting the store and find peace and grace in old memories. VERDICT This heartwarming story should appeal to fans of Richard Paul Evans and Jan Karon. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)