Devereaux Delivers New and @ Your Library

The leadership of Muhammad.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:44:00 PST

Book review:
The leadership of Muhammad.

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Gender and the Making of Modern Medicine in Colonial Egypt

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:50:00 PST

Book review:
Gender and the Making of Modern Medicine in Colonial Egypt

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Strategic leadership; how to think and plan strategically and provide direction.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:46:00 PST

Book review:
Strategic leadership; how to think and plan strategically and provide direction.

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Informing an effective response to climate change.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:36:00 PST

Book review:
Informing an effective response to climate change.

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Don't Worry (it's Safe to Eat): the true story of GM food, BSE and foot and mouth

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:46:00 PST

Don't Worry (it's Safe to Eat): the true story of GM food, BSE and foot and mouth

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Biographies for the artistic soul

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:00:05 PST

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

Library Journal -

It's nice that this book was written with the cooperation of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and that the BBC has signed on to do a series on the book's making. It's even more intriguing that revelations about van Gogh's life and death are promised, as are a 32-page color insert and 100 black-and-white illustrations. But what really sells me on this book is that Naifeh (responsible for numerous titles with coauthor and fellow Harvard Law grad Smith) wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Jackson Pollock. Expect the energy of The Starry Night; with a seven-city tour

Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon

Kirkus Reviews –

From veteran nonfiction author Salamon (Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids,2008, etc.), the authorized biography of the playwright who brought the dreams and disappointments of her generation of women to the American stage.

Though she was the first female playwright to win a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize (for The Heidi Chronicles in 1989), Wendy Wasserstein (1950–2006) never entirely escaped the judgment of her overbearing mother Lola, whose comment about the Pulitzer was, "I'd be just as happy if she'd marry a lawyer." That wasn't going to happen: Wasserstein's most intimate relationships were with gay men such as playwrights Christopher Durang and Terrence McNally, nonprofit theatrical impresario André Bishop and costume designer William Ivey Long. She jokingly referred to them as her "husbands" and enlisted McNally and Long in her attempts to conceive a child, but it was characteristic of Wasserstein's seemingly open but profoundly private nature that when she did finally give birth to daughter Lucy in 1999, no one knew precisely how she had arranged it. She was similarly secretive about the leukemia that killed her at age 55. Her conflicts and contradictions were as extraordinary as she was, yet plays like Uncommon Women and Others, Isn't It Romantic, The Sisters Rosensweig, and most of all The Heidi Chronicles voiced the experiences of her peers, women who expected to have careers as well as families and painfully discovered that having it all wasn't going to be easy—or maybe even possible. Salamon does a capable job of covering Wasserstein's professional life, including her grad-student days among the legendary mid-'70s Yale Drama crowd that also featured Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver. The author's real interest, however—and where the book excels—is in elucidating Wasserstein's complex personality and the creative, unconventional life she fashioned for herself, balancing fraught but committed family ties with a busy social life teeming with devoted friends who in the end shared drama critic Frank Rich's assessment that they "had somehow failed to see Wendy whole." That was, Salamon suggests, because she didn't want them to.

Perceptive and empathetic, but also gently unsparing—a superbly nuanced portrait.

Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine; the rise and fall of the neocons.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:53:00 PST

Book review

Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine; the rise and fall of the neocons.

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The Tale of the Scale: An Odyssey of Invention

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:47:00 PST

The Tale of the Scale: An Odyssey of Invention

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Battery management systems for large lithium-ion battery packs.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:39:00 PST

Book review:
Battery management systems for large lithium-ion battery packs.

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Rebuilding lives after domestic violence; understanding long-term outcomes.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:56:00 PST

Book review:
Rebuilding lives after domestic violence; understanding long-term outcomes.

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The Hydrogen economy: opportunities, costs, barriers, and R&D needs

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:49:00 PST

The Hydrogen economy: opportunities, costs, barriers, and R&D needs

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New bestsellers and ready for you.

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:05 PST

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War against al-Qaeda by Ali H. Soufan with Daniel Freedman

Library Journal -

This book stands out among the numerous books published on al-Qaeda because it provides information not found in other volumes; many have relied on Soufan's information, at times anonymously, but none has offered all that is here. Soufan was the FBI's most knowledgeable special agent dealing with al-Qaeda's activities and became the source of the most useful actionable intelligence on this terrorist organization. As an interrogator with unique skills, Soufan gained firsthand, reliable information about many al-Qaeda operatives. What has been remarkable about the valuable information provided by Soufan to the FBI is that he obtained all of his data without resorting to torture and objected to the prevalent use of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques that were devised during the George W. Bush administration. This absorbing book details accounts of Soufan's treasure trove of data that he provided to the U.S. government well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some of which were ignored. VERDICT The best and most original book published in the West on al-Qaeda, this is highly recommended. (Although Soufan never worked for the CIA, the FBI submitted a draft of this book to the CIA, which redacted several sections. The CIA did not sign off on the index, which is why there is none.) [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/11.]—Nader Entessar, Univ. of South Alabama, Mobile

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis

Library Journal -

The cheap credit available from 2002 to 2008 radically transformed societies worldwide, with Icelanders tossing aside their fishing gear to become bankers, for instance. Then the crunch came, and many of these societies are stumbling about as part of the "new Third World." As a greedy debtor nation, we're not so far behind. Lewis's books are always excellent and always best sellers, so this should be at the top of your list.

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

Publishers Weekly -

Ferguson (Colossus), Harvard historian, polymath, and bestselling author, joins others who’ve tried to explain the rise and dominance of the West, “the pre-eminent historical phenomenon of the second half of the second millennium after Christ.” He also has his eye on an increasingly pressing concern: the threats, from inside and outside, to Western hegemony. Ferguson attributes the West’s supremacy and the spread of Western ways to six factors: competition, science, property rights (the rule of law), medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. It’s a grab bag of plausible conditions that differ from reasons cited by other students of the subject, but all hard to prove. Ominously, from Ferguson’s perspective, “the fortuitous weakness of the West’s rivals” is turning to strengths, threatening Western supremacy. Turning from historian to seer, Ferguson thus foresees the West’s decline and fall (of which he seems convinced) arising from both self-inflicted wounds (such as self-indulgence and weakening educational systems) and the strengthening of nations, such as China, that are modernizing and improving the education of their young people. Perhaps. The book would have gained by greater focus and less of a jumble of details. The reason for Ferguson’s fear of “the rest” isn’t clear, but those who share his concern will find that he has penned a sobering caution.

Advancing the science of climate change.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:35:00 PST

Book review:
Advancing the science of climate change.

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Contours of citizenship; women, diversity and practices of citizenship.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:58:00 PST

Book review:
Contours of citizenship; women, diversity and practices of citizenship.

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Corrosion of weldments

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:51:00 PST

Corrosion of weldments

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Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:31:00 PST

Book review:
Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.

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Transcendence: on self-determination and cosmopolitanism

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:01:00 PST

Book review:
Transcendence: on self-determination and cosmopolitanism

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Contemporary titles to tide you over

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:30:00 PST

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Kirkus Reviews -

A stunning novel—erudite, compassionate and penetrating in its analysis of love relationships.

Eugenides focuses primarily on three characters, who all graduate from Brown in 1982. One of the pieces of this triangle is Madeleine Hanna, who finds herself somewhat embarrassed to have emerged from a "normal" household in New Jersey (though we later find out the normality of her upbringing is only relative). She becomes enamored with Leonard, a brilliant but moody student, in their Semiotics course, one of the texts being, ironically, Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, which Madeleine finds disturbingly problematic in helping her figure out her own love relationship. We discover that Leonard had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder during his first year at Brown, and his struggle with mood swings throughout the novel is both titanic and tender. The third major player is Mitchell, a Religious Studies major who is also attracted to Madeleine but whose reticence she finds both disturbing and incomprehensible. On graduation day, Leonard has a breakdown and is hospitalized in a mental-health ward, and Madeleine shows her commitment by skipping the festivities and seeking him out. After graduation, Leonard and Madeleine live together when Leonard gets an internship at a biology lab on Cape Cod, and the spring after graduation they marry, when Leonard is able to get his mood swings under temporary control. Meanwhile Mitchell, who takes his major seriously, travels to India seeking a path—and briefly finds one when he volunteers to work with the dying in Calcutta. But Mitchell's road to self-discovery eventually returns him to the States—and opens another opportunity for love that complicates Madeleine's life.

Dazzling work—Eugenides continues to show that he is one of the finest of contemporary novelists.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Kirkus Reviews –

Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.

The world's not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call itRomeo and Julietfor the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text,The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, "She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it." Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as "the man in the grey suit"? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise ofteenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia's magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, "There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict."

Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.

The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck and Nicole Baart

From Barnes & Noble -

This adaptation of Glenn Beck's latest Christmas book offers a message about the omnipresent closeness of families.

Apostles of modernity: Saint-Simonians and the civilizing mission in Algeria

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:04:00 PST

Book review:
Apostles of modernity: Saint-Simonians and the civilizing mission in Algeria

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Culture of Military Innovation : The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:28:00 PST

Book review: Educators Reference Complete - Document

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Adapting to the impacts of climate change.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:33:00 PST

Book review:
Adapting to the impacts of climate change.

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After the Vote Was Won : The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:25:00 PST

Book review: Educators Reference Complete - Document

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Stories for the hopeless romantic in all of us

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:05 PST

The Unquiet by J. D. Robb , Mary Blayney , Patricia Gaffney , Ruth Ryan Langan and Mary Kay McComas

Library Journal –

An appealing assortment of characters seek answers and, in some cases, internal "quiet" as they fight to make sense of a wide variety of strange happenings in this well-crafted anthology. Eve Dallas confronts a Jekyll and Hyde nightmare as she works to solve the gruesome murder of three recovering addicts in Robb's gripping, futuristic "Chaos in Death"; a mysterious coin works its magic in unexpected ways in Mary Blayney's Regency-set historical "Her Greatest Treasure"; a series of misunderstandings centering on a phone psychic eventually reward the characters in Patricia Gaffney's touching "Dear One"; a violent Highland ghost trapped in time resolves his issues with the help of a determined, fearless woman in Ruth Ryan Langan's sensual "Unforgiven"; and a ghost finally succeeds in bringing peace to his guilt-ridden brother by means of a psychically susceptible children's author in Mary Kay McComas's mesmerizing, sometimes unsettling "His Brother's Keeper." VERDICT While not Halloween-specific, this superbly conceived paranormal collection includes everything you'll need for a thrilling October read.

The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

Publishers Weekly –

This latest installment in the popular Elm Creek Quilts series proves to be a mild, unambitious addendum. In the run-up to protagonist Sarah McClure's daughter Caroline's wedding, which takes place at Elm Creek Manor, Sarah reflects on the people and quilts who have figured in her life since she herself came to the manor as a newlywed. The resulting stories recap the plots of previous books, which may bore fans of the series, while not offering enough context for first-time readers. The drama surrounding Caroline's wedding lacks vigor: whether the wedding ceremony will be rained out; whether or not the memory album quilt that Sarah wants to give her daughter will be completed; and whether or not the bride and groom are too young. Moreover, the novel's central relationship—between Sarah and her daughter Caroline—feels uninhabited, stilted, and overly formal. Only die-hard fans will be able to appreciate this lackluster novel.

Design of fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) stacks.

noreply@blogger.com (Devereaux Library) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:30:01 PST

Book review:
Design of fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) stacks.

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Devereaux Delivers New and @ Your Library

More great stories are heading your way...

The leadership of Muhammad.

Gender and the Making of Modern Medicine in Colonial Egypt

Strategic leadership; how to think and plan strategically and provide direction.

Informing an effective response to climate change.

Don't Worry (it's Safe to Eat): the true story of GM food, BSE and foot and mouth

Biographies for the artistic soul

Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine; the rise and fall of the neocons.

The Tale of the Scale: An Odyssey of Invention

Battery management systems for large lithium-ion battery packs.

Rebuilding lives after domestic violence; understanding long-term outcomes.

The Hydrogen economy: opportunities, costs, barriers, and R&D needs

New bestsellers and ready for you.

Advancing the science of climate change.

Contours of citizenship; women, diversity and practices of citizenship.

Corrosion of weldments

Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.

Transcendence: on self-determination and cosmopolitanism

Contemporary titles to tide you over

Apostles of modernity: Saint-Simonians and the civilizing mission in Algeria

Culture of Military Innovation : The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel

Adapting to the impacts of climate change.

After the Vote Was Won : The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists

Stories for the hopeless romantic in all of us

Design of fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP) stacks.