Monthly Archives: October 2009

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Author’s Book Recommendation – The Glass Room

Title: The Glass Room

Author:  Simon Mawer

Hardcover: 406 pages

Publisher: Little, Brown; First Edition edition (15 Jan 2009)

Language English

ISBN-10: 1408700778

ISBN-13: 978-1408700778

Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 4 cm

Product Description

Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure – these are things that happen in the Glass Room. High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor’s lover and her child. But the house’s story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events come full-circle.

About the Author

Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He now lives with his wife and two children in Italy, and teaches at the English School in Rome.
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Bestsellers

http://www.sfgate.com/eguide/books/bestsellers/

Book Review   books pic
Bay Area rankings are based on sales in independent bookstores in the Bay Area during the week ending Oct. 18. Rankings are provided by the American Booksellers Association and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.
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For the week of Sunday, 10/18/09
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This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 fiction / bay area
1 1 4 the lost symbol, by Dan Brown (Doubleday; 509 pages; $29.95)
2 2 11 the girl who played with fire, by Stieg Larsson (Knopf; 503 pages; $25.95)
3 5 28 the help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult; 464 pages; $24.95)
4 3 2 juliet, naked, by Nick Hornby (Riverhead; 406 pages; $25.95)
5 8 2 her fearful symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner; 406 pages; $26.99)
6 - 1 the children’s book, by A.S. Byatt (Knopf; 675 pages; $26.95)
7 7 3 an echo in the bone, by Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte; 832 pages; $30)
8 4 3 the year of the flood, by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese; 434 pages; $26.95)
9 6 6 a gate at the stairs, by Lorrie Moore (Knopf; 322 pages; $25.95)
10 11 2 the wild things, by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s; 288 pages; $19.95)
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 nonfiction / bay area
1 1 4 true compass: a memoir, by Edward M. Kennedy (Twelve; 532 pages; $35)
2 - 1 manhood for amateurs: the pleasures and regrets of a husband, father, and son, by Michael Chabon (Harper; 306 pages; $25.99)
3 2 7 nurtureshock: new thinking about children, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (Twelve; 336 pages; $24.99)
4 3 4 where men win glory: the odyssey of pat tillman, by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday; 383 pages; $27.95)
5 8 47 outliers: the story of success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown; 320 pages; $27.99)
6 5 3 the greatest show on earth: the evidence for evolution, by Richard Dawkins (Free Press; 480 pages; $30)
7 7 2 half the sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Knopf; 320 pages; $27.95)
8 10 2 have a little faith: a true story, by Mitch Albom (Hyperion; 272 pages; $23.99)
9 - 6 strength in what remains: a journey of remembrance and forgiveness, by Tracy Kidder (Random House; 277 pages; $26)
10 4 3 the case for god, by Karen Armstrong (Knopf; 432 pages; $27.95)
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 paperbacks / fiction / bay area
1 1 26 olive kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (Random House; 304 pages; $14)
2 2 16 the girl with the dragon tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (Vintage; 608 pages; $14.95)
3 3 56 the elegance of the hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery (Europa Editions; 336 pages; $15)
4 4 18 the art of racing in the rain, by Garth Stein (Harper; 336 pages; $14.99)
5 6 5 the story of edgar sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco; 608 pages; $16.99)
6 5 23 the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society,by mary ann shaffer and annie barrows, by (Dial Press; 277 pages; $14)
7 7 4 say you’re one of them,by uwem akpan, by (Back Bay; 360 pages; $14.99)
8 8 26 pride and prejudice and zombies: the classic regency romance – now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Quirk; 320 pages; $12.95)
9 11 21 netherland, by Joseph O’Neill (Vintage; 272 pages; $14.95)
10 10 27 unaccustomed earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Vintage; 352 pages; $15)
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 paperbacks / nonfiction / bay area
1 1 20 my life in france, by Julia Child (Anchor; 368 pages; $15)
2 8 3 2010 san francisco bay area restaurants, by Zagat Survey (Zagat Survey; 336 pages; $14.95)
3 2 141 three cups of tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin; 349 pages; $15)
4 5 5 the wordy shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead; 254 pages; $16)
5 3 24 in defense of food: an eater’s manifesto, by Michael Pollan (Penguin; 256 pages; $15)
6 4 6 alex & me: how a scientist and a parrot uncovered a hidden world of animal intelligence – and formed a deep bond in the process, by Irene M. Pepperberg (Harper; 240 pages; $23.95)
7 - 1 the widow cliquot: the story of a champagne empire and the woman who ruled it, by Tilar J. Mazzeo (Harper Perennial; 304 pages; $15.99)
8 11 108 the omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals, by Michael Pollan (Penguin; 464 pages; $16)
9 - 2 the mastering the art of french cooking, volume 1, by Julia Child et al. (Knopf; 1,111 pages; $30)
10 - 56 blink: the power of thinking without thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay; 320 pages; $15.99)
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 fiction / national
1 1 3 the lost symbol, by Dan Brown
2 2 2 an echo in the bone, by Diana Gabaldon
3 - 1 rough country, by John Sandford
4 3 4 the last song, by Nicholas Sparks
5 4 27 the help, by Kathryn Stockett
6 - 1 her fearful symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger
7 - 1 the perfect christmas, by Debbie Macomber
8 6 8 south of broad, by Pat Conroy
9 7 6 alex cross’s trial, by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo
10 5 2 hothouse orchid, by Stuart Woods
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 nonfiction / national
1 - 1 have a little faith, by Mitch Albom
2 1 2 arguing with idiots, by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others
3 2 3 true compass, by Edward M. Kennedy
4 - 1 the time of my life, by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi
5 - 1 the murder of king tut, by James Patterson and Martin Dugard
6 3 2 high on arrival, by Mackenzie Phillips with Hilary Liftin
7 6 3 where men win glory, by Jon Krakeur
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 paperbacks / fiction / national
1 - 3 say you’re one of them, by Uwem Akpan
2 - 72 the shack, by William P. Young
3 - 16 the time traveler’s wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
4 - 22 the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
5 - 6 push, by Sapphire
6 - 15 the girl with the dragon tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
7 - 24 olive kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
 
This
Week		 Last
Week		 Weeks
On List		 paperbacks / nonfiction / national
1 - 17 glenn beck’s common sense, by Glenn Beck
2 - 105 i hope they serve beer in hell, by Tucker Max
3 - 140 three cups of tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
4 - 14 my life in france, by Julia Child
5 - 146 the glass castle, by Jeannette Walls
6 - 261 the tipping point, by Malcolm Gladwell
7 - 3 wishful drinking, by Carrie Fisher
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Book Reviews at Clare County Library

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/library/services/book_reviews/book_reviews.htm

Use Your Public Library

Book Reviews (Adult)

Fiction:

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
Ripening Seed by Colette
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Speckled People by Hugo Hamilton
The Book of Evidence by John Banville
Amongst Women by John McGahern
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Everything in this Country Must by Colum McCann
Big Mouth by Blánaid McKinney
Hannie Bennet’s Winter Marriage by Kerry Hardie
The Blue Tango by Eoin McNamee
The Pretender by Mary Morrissy
Love in One Edition by Peter Cunningham
Overnight to Innsbruck by Denyse Woods
Seeds of Doubt by James Ryan
The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn
Any Other Time by John Trolan
The Pale Gold of Alaska and Other Stories by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne
The Gingerbread Woman by Jennifer Johnston
The Map of Tenderness by William Wall
The Collected Stories of Benedict Kiely by Benedict Kiely
Shooting Sean by Colin Bateman
The Eggman’s Apprentice by Maurice Leitch
A Wild People by Hugh Leonard
Beyond by Michael Foley
The Walled Garden by Catherine Dunne
Undertow by John Deane
That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern
Telling by Evelyn Conlon
The Anatomy School by Bernard MacLaverty
Dancing with Minnie the Twig by Mogue Doyle
Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy
Revenge by Mary Stanley
PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
The Know by Martina Cole
Minding Children by William Wall
Dúnmharú sa Daingean le Éilís Ni Dhuibhne
A Wild People by Hugh Leonard
City Girl by Patricia Scanlan
A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George
Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams
Have the Men Had Enough by Margaret Forster
Dead Famous by Ben Elton
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Chosen Prey by John Sandford
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Snow falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Beach House by James Patterson & Peter de Jonge
When the Bough Breaks by June Considine
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Marble Gardens by Deirdre Purcell
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

See also:
Children’s Book Reviews
Book of the Month
Children’s Book of the Month
Most Popular Books and Authors 2002
Non-Fiction:

Diana in Pursuit of Love by Andrew Morton
Politicians and Other Animals by Olivia O’Leary
Lucky by Alice Sebold
The Same Age as the State by Máire Cruise O’Brien
Defying Age by Dr. Miriam Stoppard
The Book of Clare by Tomas O’Maoldomhnaigh and Daniel McCarthy
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
‘Tis by Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Changing Gardens by Susan Stephenson
McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy
Paula by Isabel Allende
Kevin Myers – From the Irish Times column ‘An Irishman’s Diary’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Author’s Book Recommendation – Three Cups of Tea

Title: Three Cups of Tea

Authors: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Penguin (3 Jan 2008)

Language English

ISBN-10: 0141034262

ISBN-13: 978-0141034263

Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm

Product Description

‘Here we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die’ – Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram mountains, Pakistan. In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. “Three Cups of Tea” is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools – especially for girls – in remote villages across the forbidding and breathtaking landscape of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as the Taliban rose to power. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.

About the Author

Greg Mortenson is the director of the Central Asia Institute, and he spends several months each year building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He lives in Montana with his wife and two children. David Oliver Relin is a globe-trotting journalist who has won more than forty national awards for his writing and editing. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Spaghetti Bookclub

http://www.spaghettibookclub.org/

book reviews for kids by kids

Click on the title of the book you want to read about!

Titles A -Z  
1,2,3 Music (2 reviews)
10-Step Guide to Living with Your Monster
1001 Questions and Answers About Animals
101 Dalmations (2 reviews)
101 Facts About the Ocean
102 Dalmations
20,000 Baseball Cards Under the Sea
20000 Leagues Under the Sea
2095 (8 reviews)
39 Clues: One False Note
50 Below Zero
6 Months to Live
The 6th Grade Nickname Game
7X9=Trouble!
A-Z Mysteries: The Bald Bandit
A-Z Mysteries: The Invisible Island (2 reviews)
A-Z Mysteries: The Jaguar’s Jewel (2 reviews)
A-Z Mysteries: The Orange Outlaw (3 reviews)
A-Z Mysteries: The Yellow Yacht (3 reviews)
Aaliyah More Than a Woman
Abarat (2 reviews)
ABC
ABC Book
Abel’s Island (2 reviews)
Abner & Me
The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena
Abracadabra! Poof! Rabbits Everywhere!
The Absent Author
Absolutely Lucy
Absolutely Normal Chaos (6 reviews)
Abuela
Abuela’s Weave (3 reviews)
Ace the Very Important Pig
Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie (2 reviews)
The Action Files
Adam Sharp: Swimming with Sharks
Addy Saves the Day, a Summer Book
Adeline Falling Star …………

 

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Boston Book Review

http://www.bookwire.com/bbr/bbr-home.html

 F E A T U R E S 		 Purchase titles directly from BBR review pages!

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Justice as Fairness: A Restatement Review by Robert Briscoe 
 click covers to buy  
From the Window Seat: Children’s Books Reviews by Erik P. Kraft 
   
The Bitch is Back Review by Hannah Sullivan
 click covers to buy  
Clio’s Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States 1945-2000 Review by David Paull Nickles
   
STEPHEN GREENBLATT: THE WICKED SON Interview by Harvey Blume
   
Demonology Review by Rob Reynolds
   
Indivisible Review by Kim Jensen
   
Temple and Shipman Review by Warner Berthoff  
   
True History of the Kelly Gang Reviewed by Alex Marsh
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   Film Press Release

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In Sunlight, In A Beautiful Garden
Review by Caitlin O’ Neil		  
     
Hugh Kenner:
The Grand Tour
Interview by Harvey Blume		  
     
5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond
Review by Miguel Alandete		  

 

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Author’s Book Recommendation – Loving Frank

Title: Loving Frank

Author:  Nancy Horan

Paperback: 432 pages

Publisher: Sceptre (2 Oct 2008)

Language English

ISBN-10: 0340919442

ISBN-13: 978-0340919446

Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3 cm

Product Description

In the early 1900s polite Chicago society was rocked by terrible scandal as renowned architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, ran off with Mamah Cheney, a client’s wife.Abandoning their families and reputations, the lovers fled to Europe and exile. Mamah’s actions branded her an unnatural mother and society relished her persecution.

For the rest of her life Mamah paid an extraordinary price for moving outside society’s rules, in a time that was unforgiving of a woman’s quest for fulfilment and personal happiness. Headstrong and honest, her love for Frank was unstoppable. This portrait of her life as his muse and soulmate is a moving, passionate and timeless love story.

About the Author

Nancy Horan is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications. Loving Frank is her first novel. She lived most of her life in Oak Park, IL – on the same street as the Cheney house – until her recent move to Puget Sound.
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The Dublin Quarterly

http://www.dublinquarterly.com/05/bk_rev.html

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award!

Edward P. Jones: The Known World
Diane Awerbuck: Gardening At Night
Damon Galgut: The Good Doctor

The Known World by Edward P. Jones: Harper Perennial, London/2004
Available at: Amazon.co.uk

What The Known World makes The Known World by Edward P. Jones unique is not its treatment of slavery because this is the aesthetic core of many novels that include Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage. It is not also the physical and psychological trauma of the slavery experience; this also is effectively interrogated in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. And it is not even the profound statement of protest and resistance that echo in the numerous attempts by the slaves to escape servitude and captivity, this again is the narrative centre of Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed.

The Known World is outstanding because it explores these despicable maladies and situates them within the refreshing and enriching logic of social contradictions of free blacks owning black slaves. The main narrative focus of The Known World is the suffering and exploitation of a Race, the black Race, and how blacks themselves have collaborated in this exploitation. It explicates the inhuman act of slavery, the lure of property, the denial of freedom and the abuse of family values.

Set in a plantation in Manchester County Virginia owned by Henry Townsend, a free black, the novel opens the very evening Henry died at the age of 31, leaving for his widow, Caldonia, a vast assets: a large house, an expanse of farmland and thirty three slaves; 13 women, 11 men and 9 children. And with a narration that is moving back and forth the plot unfolds to reveal Caldonia’s fruitless struggle to stabilise the chaos and inevitable decline of a fragile and an evil empire.

The reader will understand the passion that drives a widow to sleep with one of her male slaves, but nothing will prepare him for the devastation that would follow Caldonia’s action. What should have passed for a one-night-stand between Caldonia and Moses gradually builds into nights of frequent orgies. Moses, an overseer, who is happily married to Priscilla with a twelve-year-old son, Jamie, now begins to dream of being freed soon and married to Caldonia.

It is his thinking that in such Utopian world there is no space to accommodate a slave wife and slave son, and so he decides to make an alternative arrangement for them. Wielding his power as an overseer, Moses tells Alice, one of Caldonia’s slaves, known to be of an unsound mind, that he has set her free. He then convinces her to take his wife and son along with her. It is their successful escape from Henry’s plantation that fractures the fragile world of the Manchester County Virginia and set The Known World towards the inevitable journey of affirmation and communal positive identity that emerge at the end.

The Known World is not a story about an individual: It actually lacks a central character, but flagellates between characters; from Henry to Moses, from Robbins to Caldonia, and from Counsel to Skiffington. And its world is inhumane and callous: free slaves like Augustus, Willis and Selby can be sold back into slavery because, as Robbins William points out to his black slave wife, Philomena Cartwright, “paper meant nothing”, an ironic truth that is practically demonstrated when Harvey Travis chews and swallows Augustus’ paper. It is an inhumane and callous world that a Bristol white woman is flogged for fornication, but her black accomplice receives a capital punishment; that escape is perceived as a more heinous crime than rape because “a run-away was, in fact, a thief since he had stolen his master’s property–himself” and the penalty ranges from slicing of ear to cutting of Achilles tendon. (Bleeding is stopped with a pepper poultice.)

The most dramatic moment in the novel is the confrontation between Augustus and his son, Henry, narrated in flashback. Augustus philosophy of life is expounded in Mildred parable thus: “Don’t go back to Egypt after God done took you outa there,” Egypt being a metaphor for oppression. But Henry sees in Egypt a place of abundance and a symbol of power. On that evening in the fall, Augustus whips Henry across the shoulder with a stick, and says with a sardonic tone, “Thas just how every slave every day be feelin.” Henry in turn forces the stick from his father, bricks it over his knees and responds, “Thas how a master feels.” Ironically, Augustus Townsend, who had long bought his freedom, had also bought Henry’s.

Though that singular Father-Son confrontation is the novel’s defining moment, it is not its narrative Centre. The Centre of The Known World is located in a map. The Map motif is the thematic and structural device in the novel. There are three maps in The Known World and are all symbolic. One is “a browned and yellowed woodcut of some eight feet by six feet” map on wall of Skiffington office with the heading “The Known World”. Skiffington has actually bought it from a Russian as a present for his wife, Winifred, but she has rejected it on the grounds that it is “too heinous to be in her house”, evoking a horrofic image of evil, of death, of denial that the map symbolises. Even Jean Broussard, a French-American facing murder charges, will later dismiss it as “a map of yesterday” and offer to get Skiffington a “better map, and a map of today.”

The other two maps are the “grand piece of art,” hanging “silent and yet songful” on the wall in the dinning room of the Hotel on C Street in the City of Washington, each titled “Alice Night”. One is a map of County of Manchester, Virginia; the other is the map of the Plantation-Community of Henry Townsend. They are both made of the same material: “part tapestry, part panting, and part clay structure”. Alice Night is the image of triumph of the human spirit against evil. It embodies the vision of the metaphysical man, free from his shackles.

It is instructive that the faces of the people in the map are raised up, “as though to look in the very eyes of God.” It is equally instructive that the owners and proprietors of the Hotel are Alice, Priscilla and other runaways. But far more instructive is that in this eternal creation there is no place for a slave cemetery; it “is just plain ground now, grass and nothing else. It is empty, even of the tiniest infants, who rest alive and well in their mother’s arms.” Alice Night is the very symbol of life, of rebirth, of regeneration, of affirmation and communal positive identity, which The Known World affirms.

  • Reviewed by Peter Anny-Nzekwue

    • by

    The Guardian Book Reviews

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/books+tone/reviews

    Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist

    Michel Faber asks if a graphic biography of Johnny Cash has a responsibility to the facts

    The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

    Patrick Ness finds the novelisation of a revered picture book sends him back to the original
    Latest:
  • Finding the plot
  • ‘I’m interested in the slightly dumb and obvious’
  • How fiction can help explain the BNP
  • The digested read
  • Her story in history
  • All today’s stories
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    Author’s Book Recommendation – The Bolter

    Title:  The Bolter: Idina Sackville – The Woman Who Scandalised 1920s Society and Became White Mischief’s Infamous Seductress 

    Author: Frances Osborne

    Paperback: 336 pages

    Publisher: Virago Press Ltd (29 Dec 2008)

    Language English

    ISBN-10: 1844084809

    ISBN-13: 978-1844084807

    Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2 cm

    Product Description

    On Friday 25th May, 1934, a forty-one-year-old woman walked into the lobby of Claridge’s Hotel to meet the nineteen-year-old son whose face she did not know. Fifteen years earlier, as the First World War ended, Idina Sackville shocked high society by leaving his multimillionaire father to run off to Africa with a near penniless man. An inspiration for Nancy Mitford’s character The Bolter, painted by William Orpen, and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a picture of her first love by her bed. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left one husband murdered and branded her the ‘high priestess’ of White Mischief’s bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. Sackville’s life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne. Now, Osborne tells the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind Sackville’s road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.

    About the Author

    Born in London in 1969, Frances Osborne worked as a barrister, investment research analyst and journalist before writing her first book, Lilla’s Feast. She is married to George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor.

    Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0307270149

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    LibWeb

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    Libweb

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    Updated daily.
    Libweb currently lists over 7900 pages from libraries in 146 countries.

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    The Internet Public Library

    http://www.ipl.org/div/websearching/

    Web Searching Tips

    Looking for information on the Web? The sites listed below are some of the IPL’s favorite general Internet search engines and web directories. No search engine or catalog is comprehensive, so it’s important to use a variety of tools.

    If you’re a new searcher, try…

    The University at Albany Libraries’ Boolean Logic Primer shows you how to use AND, OR, NEAR, and NOT in your search strategies.

    If you’re looking for new ways to search, try…

    Search Engine Watch has search engine news, tips for searching, and comparisons of search engines’ capabilities.

    Once you’ve got your search results, how do you know if they’re any good? Try…
    Selective web guides:
    Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ — The IPL’s own collections of over 40,000 Internet resources, hand picked, organized and described by librarians and library students.
    Librarians’ Internet Index     http://www.lii.org/ — From the Library of California, the site’s motto is “Information You Can Trust.” A directory of “Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries.”
    About.com http://www.about.com/ – Offers hundreds of Guides which contain original articles, selected websites, and community features like chat rooms. Each area is overseen by an “expert guide” trained by About.com.
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    Author’s Book Recommendation – The Associate

    Title: The Associate

    Author: John Grisham

    Paperback: 384 pages

    Publisher: Century (2 Jul 2009)

    Language English

    ISBN-10 1846055849

    ISBN-13: 978-1846055843

    Product Dimensions: 23 x 15 x 3.2 cm

    Product Description

    It’s a deadly game of blackmail. And they’re making him play. Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he’s good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life. One night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men in a dark alley – they have a deeply compromising video of the incident that haunts him. The men make it clear to Kyle that he no longer owns his own future – that he must do as they tell him, or the video will be made public knowledge, with all the unpleasant consequences.What price do they demand for Kyle’s secret? Strangely, it is for Kyle to do exactly what any ambitious young lawyer would want to do: take a job in New York as an associate at the largest law firm in the world , a job that is incredibly well paid and, with mammoth hours and outrageous billing, could lead to partnership and a fortune. But Kyle won’t be working for the company, but against it – passing on the secrets of the company’s biggest trial to date, a dispute between two defense contractors worth billions of dollars to the victor. Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him and the FBI, who would love to unmask the conspiracy. Will his intellect, cunning and bravery be enough to extricate him from an impossible dilemma? Full of twists and turns and reminiscent of “The Firm”, “The Associate” is vintage John Grisham.
    About the Author
    John Grisham has written twenty previous novels and one work of nonfiction, The Innocent Man, published in 2006. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi.
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    Readerville

    The Hunger Games papertyger on The Hunger Games A little stumbling stylistically early on, but undeniably compellingly told. I found the progression of events a bit predictable, but the tension i…
    Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson papertyger on Fatal Journey: The Final … A bit stiff &amp; stuttering. A lack of primary materials means the narrative is too reliant on conjecture (&quot;perhaps he&quot; and &quot;he may…
    Mr. Bridge KarenWall on Mr. Bridge Companion novel to Mrs. Bridge, which I read recently and liked very much.

    — Also Recommended —

    • B&N Review
    • The Believer
    • The Book Bench
    • The Book Cover Archive
    • Bookforum
    • The Book Oven Blog / @bookoven
    • Booksquare / @booksquare
    • Buzz, Balls & Hype / @mjrose
    • Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind / @sarahw
    • Conversational Reading
    • Emerging Writers Network
    • Follow the Reader / @katmeyer
    • GalleyCat / @ronhogan, @jasonboog
    • Henry Sene Yee Design
    • Identity Theory / @idtheory, @condalmo, @readandbreathe
    • if:book
    • Index // mb / @mdash
    • Jacket Mechanical
    • @jafurtado
    • A Journey Round My Skull
    • Largehearted Boy / @largeheartedboy
    • Litagogo / @hollowaymcc
    • @luxlotus
    • Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes / @mathitak
    • Maud Newton / @maudnewton
    • The Millions
    • The Morning News
    • @roncharles
    • The Rumpus
    • Salon Books
    • The Second Pass
    • Stop Smiling
    • The Story Prize Blog / @lcdark
    • Teleread
    • Tomorrow Museum / @jomc
    • The Utne Reader / @utnereader

    by

    NY Review of Books

    http://www.nybooks.com/

    1989!
    by Timothy Garton Ash
    I spent many hours of my life standing in the crowds in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague; their behavior was both inspiring and mysterious. What had moved these individual men and women to come out in the streets, especially in the early days, when it was not self-evidently safe to do so? Who, in Prague, was the first to take a key ring out of his or her pocket, hold the keys aloft, and shake them—an action that, copied by 300,000 people, produced the most amazing sound, like massed Chinese bells? It is surely time for contemporary historians, with hours of television, video, and radio footage at their disposal, to take up the challenge of trying to analyze 1989 from below, and not merely from above.

    Which Way for Hamas?
    by Nicolas Pelham and Max Rodenbeck
    Nearly four years after winning the 2006 elections, and two years after its gunmen overpowered Palestinian Authority forces to seize control of the Gaza strip, Hamas no longer acts like an opposition suddenly thrust into power. In a sense, it has become captive to its own success as it struggles now to reconcile the pressing needs of day-to-day governance with the ideology it preached in opposition, and to reconcile as well its Palestinian cause with its wider Islamic one, and its cult of guns and martyrdom with more pragmatic instincts.

    The Confessions of Bill
    by David Bromwich
    On The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President by Taylor Branch.

    by

    Author’s Book Recommendation – First Family

    Title:  First Family

    Author:  David Baldacci

    Paperback: 400 pages

    Publisher: Pan (6 Nov 2009)

    ISBN-10: 033046356X

    ISBN-13: 978-0330463560

    Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11 x 4.4 cm

    Product Description

    When she turned the page and her gaze flickered over the date on top it was as though the lightening outside had somehow grounded right into her. A billion volts of pain, a shriek of anguish you could actually see, and feel, as it pierced her. Camp David, USA. A birthday party turns into a nightmare when a child is snatched after the celebrations. The First Lady enlists the services of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to bring the child home safely. But she and King share a past. Years ago he saved her then senator husband from political disaster. And this may not be all that passed between them. With Michelle still battling her own demons, the two are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them -and the line between friend and foe impossible to define …or defend.

    Book Description

    When she turned the page and her gaze flickered over the date on top it was as though the lightening outside had somehow grounded right into her. A billion volts of pain, a shriek of anguish you could actually see, and feel, as it pierced her. Camp David, USA. A birthday party turns into a nightmare when a child is snatched after the celebrations.The First Lady enlists the services of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to bring the child home safely. But she and King share a past. Years ago he saved her then senator husband from political disaster. And this may not be all that passed between them. With Michelle still battling her own demons, the two are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them -and the line between friend and foe impossible to define . . . or defend.

    About the Author

    David Baldacci is the author of fifteen previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers. With his books published in over 40 languages in more than 80 countries, and with nearly 70 million copies in print, he is one of the world’s favourite storytellers. David Baldacci is also the co-founder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at http://www.DavidBaldacci.com, and his foundation at http://www.WishYouWellFoundation.org, and to look into its programme to spread books across America at http://www.FeedingBodyandMind.com.

    Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/033046356X

    by

    My Lit Blog of the Week – The Common Reader

    http://mcnallyjackson.com/blog/

    What We’ve Been Mumbling About This Week

    October 2nd, 2009 § Dustin

    • Thus my favorite authors right now: Caryl Phillips and Patrick McGrath. Dislocated fiction or nothing at all! #
    • I’m such a pushover for the spoken word. After almost every reading, that night’s author is, for a few moments, my utter favorite. #
    • Tonight at McNJ: New York State farmers and the writers who love them. #
    • RT @nyrbclassics: rt @creativecommons Check out Jonathan Lethem’s great Creative Commons–licensed Philip K. Dick essay http://bit.ly/3y5Dhu #
    • Meet a real live farmer (two!) at tonight’s panel about the future of small agriculture. Apparently that is still a job? Our cafe; 7PM. #
    • Yes, we’re excited! RT @loganberrybooks: @mcnallyjackson David Small AND Jules Feiffer? What a fantastic event! #
    • A secret for our followers: David Small has his unseen graphic version of Freud’s Civilization to show us tonight, too. Curious? #
    • Have you read David Small’s Stitches yet? Amazing graphic memoir. Ridiculous talent. He’s in tonight to read and talk to Jules Feiffer. 7PM #
    • It’s a cute-off: Josh Kilmer-Purcell (tonight’s reader) v. his goats. http://bit.ly/C4uWH #
    • Swoonfest ’09: John Krasinksi (from The Office & Away We Go) here TONIGHT at 5 pm to discuss Brief Interviews #
    • Best customer comment this week: “This is the bookstore from the show!” #

    Post to Twitter Tweet This Post!

    by

    Author’s Book Recommendation – Burnt Shadows

    Title:  Burnt Shadows

    Author: Kamila Shamsie

    Paperback: 384 pages

    Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (5 Oct 2009)

    ISBN-10: 140880087X

    ISBN-13: 978-1408800874

    Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm

    Product Description
    In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders. August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad’s half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history – personal, political – are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and in the novel’s astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound them together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences. Sweeping in its scope and mesmerising in its evocation of time and place, “Burnt Shadows” is an epic narrative of disasters evaded and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.

    About the Author
    Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan. She is the author of four previous novels: In the City by the Sea, Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Salt and Saffron and Broken Verses. In 1999 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature and in 2004 the Patras Bokhari Award – both awarded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie lives in London.

    Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0312551878

    by

    Author’s Book Recommendation – 8th Confession

    Title: 8th Confession (Womens Murder Club 8)

    Author:  James Patterson

    Hardcover: 368 pages

    Publisher: Century (26 Mar 2009)

    Language English

    ISBN-10: 1846052580

    ISBN-13: 978-1846052583

    Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm

    Product Description

    Product Description
    Behind the closed doors of San Francisco’s grandest mansions, beautiful people party the nights away in a heady mix of money, drugs, drink and sex. But the rich and famous aren’t the only ones with the keys to these most exclusive of addresses, someone else is intent on crashing the party. A rock star, a fashion designer, a software tycoon and a millionaire heiress. Each is glamourous, stunningly attractive and incredibly rich, but their similarities don’t end there, they have something else in common too. They are all dead. Just as the rich and famous are the talk of the town when they’re alive, interest in them certainly doesn’t die when they do, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is quickly assigned to the case. In stark contrast, few people seem as interested when a local hero, Bagman Jesus, is brutally murdered.Reporter Cindy Thomas soon becomes interested in his story: his work with the homeless of San Francisco was admirable. He was loved by so many – who would want to kill him? Could the down-and-out Samaritan have been hiding a dark secret? It isn’t just Cindy who has questions that need answering, Lindsay fiercely depends on Claire’s help to crack her case. Both seek guidance from their friends, but in doing so, they are forced to confront feelings they’d buried away. Things aren’t so simple for Yuki either, as she falls quite literally head over heels in love; but the man of her dreams isn’t quite who he seems. The Women’s Murder Club need each other more than ever but with tensions running high will the friends be strong enough to stick together or will the strain tear them apart?
    About the Author
    James Patterson is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women’s Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He has won an Edgar award, the mystery world’s highest honour. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.
    by

    Always and Forever

    Always

      The Book Always and Forever by Annette J Dunlea is on sale online and in the bookstores. The book now has its own website and blog  at http://alwaysroseoftralee.synthasite.com/

    Annette J Dunlea Irish Author  Website: Http://www.annettedunlea.com

    Follow Me

    Follow Me on Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/adunlea#/pages/Annette-J-Dunlea-Irish-Author/197471056144?ref=ts

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    Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adunlea

    Or Ning: http://bookmarket.ning.com/profile/AnnetteDunlea

     Buy Online at : http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1409272974