TSCPL | Books

Fiction & Nonfiction New York Times Bestsellers

2009-11-16T15:06:12+00:00

Find this week's newest new york times bestsellers @ your library!

Fiction

	1 FORD COUNTY, by John Grisham. Stories set in rural Mississippi.
	2 THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. Robert Langdon among the Masons.
	3 KINDRED IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. Lt. Eve Dallas investigates the brutal murder of a colleague’s daughter; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously.
	4 THE GATHERING STORM, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Book 12 of the Wheel of Time fantasy series.
	5 THE LACUNA, by Barbara Kingsolver. A young American growing up in Mexico becomes friends with Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo and Leon Trotsky; later, in the United States, he is menaced by McCarthyism.
	6 TRUE BLUE, by David Baldacci. An ex-cop in Washington struggles to clear her name.
	7 THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi
	8 PURSUIT OF HONOR, by Vince Flynn. The counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp must teach politicians about national security following a new Qaeda attack.
	9 THE SCARPETTA FACTOR, by Patricia Cornwell. Apparent threats on Kay Scarpetta’s life make her hesitate when a TV producer wants her to star in a show.
	10 LAST NIGHT IN TWISTED RIVER, by John Irving. A loggers’ cook and his son are on the run from the law, for decades.

NonFiction

	1 HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom. A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.
	2 SUPERFREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything: the sequel.
	3 WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell. A decade of New Yorker essays.
	4 ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others. Making the case against big government.
	5 THE BOOK OF BASKETBALL, by Bill Simmons. ESPN.com’s Sports Guy crunches big questions in N.B.A. history.
	6 THE AUDACITY TO WIN, by David Plouffe. Obama’s presidential campaign, by the man who managed it.
	7 OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunity — from the author of “Blink."
	8 THE SELLOUT, by Charles Gasparino. How Wall Street’s love affair with risk (and enormous profits) and government mismanagement caused the global economy to implode.
	9 TOO BIG TO FAIL, by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The 2008 financial implosion on Wall Street and in Washington, by a New York Times reporter and columnist.
	10 WHEN THE GAME WAS OURS, by Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson with Jackie MacMullan. Two great basketball players discuss their careers, their long rivalry and their eventual friendship.

Tarquin Hall’s Mystery Debut

2009-11-11T13:27:28+00:00

Servants come and go, but when a lawyer is accused of killing a servant who has disappeared, it’s up to India’s most private investigator Vish Puri to find her. Puri doesn’t have much to go on with only the servant’s first name as a lead and a few clues, but with his powers of deduction he never has any doubt he will find her. The truth may seem elusive, and the case is not without danger because soon a witness ends up dead.

The Case of the Missing Servant: From the Files of Vish Puri, India’s “Most Private Investigator” by Tarquin Hall paints a picture of modern India as Puri goes throughout India and encounters the different classes and castes in pursuit of the missing servant. A society that is both changing and traditional, Puri himself is a contrast as he is the son of a policeman, but has moved up in the world and is a member of an exclusive club where he screens members to keep the wrong people out. This is an intriguing mystery that gives a glimpse into the world of India.

The Latest Novel from Walter Jon Williams

2009-11-04T13:34:25+00:00

Dagmar is a woman trapped in a hotel room while the city around her erupts into violence and chaos. When attempts to rescue her are delayed, she turns to an online gaming bulletin board for help. Dagmar designs online games and the group isn’t sure if she is really in danger or if it is a game, but for her the fear is very real.

In This is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams, Dagmar is one of four friends from college whose paths are about to cross with deadly consequences - one is gunned down and another goes into hiding. The gaming world and the real world cross paths as she tries to survive and finds that lines between the two worlds begin to blur. Set in the near future, this is a hard to put down thriller where games and reality collide.

Fiction & Nonfiction New York Times Bestsellers

2009-11-02T15:28:16+00:00

find this week's new york times bestsellers at your library!

Fiction

	1 THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. Robert Langdon among the Masons.
	2 THE SCARPETTA FACTOR, by Patricia Cornwell. Apparent threats on Kay Scarpetta’s life make her hesitate when a TV producer wants her to star in a show.
	3 PURSUIT OF HONOR, by Vince Flynn. The counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp must teach politicians about national security following a new Qaeda attack.
	4 NINE DRAGONS, by Michael Connelly. The Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch fights crime at home and in Hong Kong.
	5 THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi
	6 HEAT WAVE, by Richard Castle. An N.Y.P.D. homicide detective investigates the death of a real estate tycoon and flirts with a magazine journalist.
	7 WOLF HALL, by Hilary Mantel. Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell clash in Henry VIII’s turbulent court.
	8 SOUTHERN LIGHTS, by Danielle Steel. When a New York prosecutor’s daughter is threatened, she sends her back to the Charleston world she herself fled.
	9HALF BROKE HORSES, by Jeannette Walls. A re-creation of the life of the author’s grandmother, a mustang breaker, schoolteacher, ranch wife and mother of two who grew up in the Southwest in the early 20th century, by the author of “The Glass Castle.”
	10 THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.

NonFiction

	1 HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom. A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.
	2 SUPERFREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything: the sequel.
	3 WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell. A decade of New Yorker essays.
	4 TOO BIG TO FAIL, by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The 2008 financial implosion on Wall Street and in Washington, by a New York Times reporter and columnist.
	5 ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others. Making the case against big government.
	6 HIGHEST DUTY, by Chesley B. Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow. The importance of preparing for the unexpected, by the pilot-hero of Flight 1549.
	7 TRUE COMPASS, by Edward M. Kennedy. The late senator’s autobiography.
	8 OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunity — from the author of “Blink."
	9 THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, by Richard Dawkins. Evidence for evolution; a counterattack on advocates of intelligent design.
	10 WHERE MEN WIN GLORY, by Jon Krakauer. The story of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who enlisted after 9/11, and the Army’s cover-up of his death by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

Readalikes for A.S. Byatt

2009-10-28T14:17:51+00:00

If you are interested in reading A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book you might enjoy these readalikes:

The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pear

In the 400s, as the Roman Empire settles into dust, landowner-turned-bishop Manlius attempts to record the ideas of his teacher, the Neo-Platonist Sophia. In the 1300s, this treatise ("The Dream of Scipio") is discovered by poet Olivier de Noyen, whose efforts to understand it lead him to a learned Jew and a secret love that forces upon him a momentous moral decision while the plague ravages the countryside. In the 1930s, Julien Barneuve encounters de Noyen and his references to the wondrous treatise, even as the Holocaust looms and Barneuve struggles desperately to protect the woman he loves a painter and a Jew. (Library Journal)

King in the Tree by Steven Millhauser

There is nothing lighthearted about love, implies Millhauser, in these three dark and feverishly rich novellas…[His] portrayal of fools and self-made victims is unblinking and unsentimental. He is particularly attuned to the ways that people fall out of love…at his best dramatizing these moments of ambivalent hesitation and the disastrous effect they have on the ‘fellowships of two.’ Though he covers time-honored territory, Millhauser’s precision, coupled with his brave imagination, makes these stories as smart and fresh as they are grim. (Publishers Weekly)

The Map of Love by Adhaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love is a massive family saga, a story that draws its readers into two moments in the complex, troubled history of modern Egypt. The story begins in 1977 in New York. There Isabel Parkman discovers an old trunk full of documents--some in English, some in Arabic--in her dying mother's apartment. Incapable of deciphering this stash by herself, she turns to Omar al-Ghamrawi, a man with whom she is falling in love. And Omar directs her in turn to his sister Amal in Cairo.

Together the two women begin to uncover the stories embedded in the journal of Lady Anna Winterbourne, who traveled to Egypt in 1900 and fell in love with Sharif Pasha al-Barudi, an Egyptian nationalist. To their surprise, they stumble across some unsuspected connections between their own families. Less surprising, perhaps, is the persistence of the very same issues that dogged their ancestors: colonialism, Egyptian nationalism, and the clash of cultures throughout the Middle East. (amazon.com)

The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

The Moor's Last Sigh tells the family history of Moraes Zogoiby, known as "the Moor." He is the last survivor of a family descended from the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (ca.1469-1524), who sailed to India in search of spice and whose offspring grew rich in shipping it to the West. Among his ancestors, Moraes also numbers Boabdil (Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad XI, ca. 1460-1527), the last Muslim king in Spain, forced in 1492 to surrender his city to Ferdinand and Isabella. The spot from which Boabdil gazed for the last time at Granada is today a tourist attraction, known as 'The Last Sigh of the Moor. (bookrags.com)

Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier

Set among the sweeping skirts and social upheavals of Edwardian London, Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels is a meditation on change, loss, and recovery. Her central characters are two young girls of the same age, whose family plots are situated side-by-side in a cemetery modeled on Highgate. Lavinia Waterhouse is respectably middle-class, devoted, like her conventional, doting mother, to the right way to do things, although suspiciously well- schooled in subjects like funerary sculpture and the English practices of mourning. Her friend Maude Coleman comes from a slightly more privileged and free-thinking background. In contrast with Lavinia's mother, Maude's mother Kitty Coleman is well-educated by the standards of the day, and it has made her restless and irritable. But neither her reading, nor her gardening, nor her affair with the somber, high-thinking governor of the cemetery is enough for Kitty. She comes alive only when she discovers the women's suffrage movement, and her devotion to the cause takes her away from Maude in every sense. (amazon.com)

The Curse that Kills

2009-10-28T13:27:59+00:00

The ultimate parent’s nightmare came true for Angela two years before when her son killed himself at her grandmother’s house. Now living in LA, Angela has begun a new life, but she still isn’t safe from the tragedy that haunts her. She decides to face the past and return to her grandmother’s house in a small town in Washington.

The curse behind her son’s death is old and very much alive. Angela in her innocence tries to heal the past, but soon discovers something is very wrong as a new nightmare begins. To stop it she must go beyond the rational and rediscover her family’s past, but the curse has been waiting for her to return and wants to destroy her.

The Good House: A Novel by Tananarive Due is a horror novel that moves adeptly between the past and the present, building the tension as Angela struggles to discover the truth and survive. The family relationships and the characters are complex and feel real. This is a horror novel that moves beyond the genre and creates a memorable story about people.

Booklist for fans of Terri Blackstock, Christian Suspense author

2009-10-26T22:22:29+00:00

Terri Blackstock is known for writing Christian suspense novels that keep readers on the edge of their seats. Her novels also feature heroic characters, a touch of romance, and explore matters of faith. Her latest, Intervention, tells the story of Barbara Covington, who has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction: staging an intervention. But when eighteen-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment--and her interventionist is found dead at the airport where she was last seen--Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.

Here is a list of some other Christian fiction novels that would appeal to fans of Blackstock:

Sacred Trust by Hannah Alexander
Dr. Lukas Bower believes in God, the Hippocratic Oath and doing the right thing. Lukas won't prescribe drugs to an addict just because he's the son of a hospital board member. Or let an obese man die because he doesn't have insurance. Lukas didn't play hospital politics at his former job, and he won't in this small-town Missouri emergency department. One very attractive colleague seems to appreciate Lukas's commitment to honor and truth. But Dr. Mercy Richmond's feelings will be tested when her child is brought into Lukas's E.R., putting her sacred trust, her heart—and her daughter's life—in his hands.

Crystal Lies by Melody Carlson
A Son’s Addiction. A Mother’s Heartbreak. A Family’s Crisis. As the wife of a prominent city attorney and the mother of two teenage children on the brink of adulthood, Glennis Harmon lives the kind of successful, high-profile life that many people envy. But when nineteen-year-old Jacob is drawn into substance abuse, Glennis’ “perfect” world shatters like a crystal vase rocked from its once-steady shelf. Glennis struggles to understand the response of her family as they seek to support Jacob’s recovery. Her husband appears more concerned with protecting his image than with finding help for their troubled son, but Glennis becomes determined to save Jacob no matter what the cost.

Alaska Twilight by Colleen Coble
"You're afraid of really living, Haley." He flicked his finger at her camera. "You hide behind your camera instead of stepping out and engaging life with both hands. You're so afraid you'll fail at something, you won't even try."For some people, Alaska is a breathtaking wilderness adventure, full of light and beauty. For Haley, it is a dangerous world of dark dreams and tortured memories. On the surface, she's here to document wildlife activist Kipp Nowak's bear encounters. But her real reason is to unearth the truth about a past murder.

Violet Dawn by Brandilyn Collins
Something sinuous in the water brushed against Paige's knee. She jerked her leg away. What was that? She rose to a sitting position, groped around with her left hand. Fine wisps wound themselves around her fingers. Hair? She yanked backward, but the tendrils clung. Something solid bumped her wrist. Paige gasped. With one frantic motion she shook her arm free, grabbed the side of the hot tub, and heaved herself out. Paige Williams slips into her hot tub in the blackness of night-and finds herself face to face with death. Alone, terrified, fleeing a dark past, Paige must make an unthinkable choice.

The Edge of Recall by Kristen Heitzman
She locked up the vision like a monster in her mind's maze, but it lurked there, on The Edge of Recall.Tessa Young is a landscape architect who specializes in the design and creation of labyrinths. For years she has immersed herself in the healing aspects of these elaborate structures, searching for God and hoping to make sense of the nightmares that have plagued her since childhood.When Smith Chandler, a colleague who once betrayed her, offers an opportunity to reconstruct a remarkable Colonial-era labyrinth, she can't resist this project of a lifetime. But one evening, as dusk falls, an assailant ambushes Tessa and Smith and the real nightmare begins.

The Note by Angela Hunt
When the unthinkable happens . . .En route from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Tampa International, Flight 848 bursts into flames and crashes into Tampa Bay. All 261 passengers and crew are killed. For one week, newspaper columnist Peyton MacGruder and her fellow reporters cover one of the nation's worst air disasters in years with overwhelming and numbed emotions.Then a woman Peyton's never met gives her a plastic bag that has washed up behind her house. The bag contains a note, almost certainly from the doomed flight, with a simple yet wrenching message: T- I love you. All is forgiven. -Dad. Combing through the passenger list to find the victims whose children's names begin with T, Peyton is determined to deliver the note to its proper owner. A quest which will prove as important to Peyton's own life as to the mysterious T.

The Witness by Dee Henderson
Police Chief Luke Granger's witness to a murder, Amy Griffin, has been on the run for years. Her family thinks she was murdered eight years ago, but Amy chose to accept a life in the shadows in order to protect her sisters' lives. Now unveiled secrets about their father have thrust the sisters into the public spotlight. The man who wants Amy dead now sees her sisters as the way to locate her. Luke and two of his homicide detectives are determined to stand in the way. They are each falling in love with a different sister, and it's become a personal mission to keep them safe. But chances are that at least one of them will fail, and facing the future will take a faith deeper than any of them currently knows.

Nobody by Creston Mapes
They said, “He’s a nobody.” They were dead wrong. When reporter Hudson Ambrose hears an early morning call on his police scanner about an injured person at a bus stop on Las Vegas Boulevard, he rushes to the scene to get the scoop. His world is blown off its axis when he discovers a murdered homeless man with a bankbook in his pocket showing a balance of almost one million dollars. Should he wait for the police, knowing the case will get lost in reams of red tape, or swipe the bankbook and take the investigation–and perhaps a chunk of the money–into his own hands? With sirens bearing down on the scene, Hudson makes an impulse decision that whisks him on a frantic search for answers, not only about the mysterious dead man, but about the lost soul lurking within himself. Uncovering bizarre links between a plane crash, a Las Vegas pit boss, a dirty cop, and a widowed Atlanta business mogul, Hudson is forced to find out: who was Chester Holte, what was he doing on the streets, and why are his homeless friends convinced he was an angel in disguise?

By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer
After a series of killings, reporter Catherine O'Rourke is plagued by dreams that reveal each crime in ghastly detail. But because of her intimate knowledge, she's charged with murder, and her high-priced lawyer wants her to plead insanity. Can his famed legal maneuvering save her--or will it take a miracle?

Admission by Travis Thrasher
Adventure Company entrepreneur Jake Rivers gets a call from the parents of a woman who has disappeared and who was last seen with Alec, Jake’s best friend from college. The girl’s parents believe she is hiding out with Alec, but Jake hasn’t heard from him in 10 years. Jake’s moved on from his college days, but the memories of what he’s tried to forget—a friend’s suicide, an enemy’s mysterious disappearance— keep surfacing. Someone wants to keep him from discovering what really happened.

Wiser Than Serpents by Susan May Warren
Her sister had vanished, trapped in a human slavery ring. To find her, FSB agent Yanna Andrevka arranged her own kidnapping into Taiwan's sex-trafficking trade. And found herself with no way out. Until Yanna discovered an ally deep undercover: Delta Force captain David Curtiss. He was after the kingpin of the Twin Serpents, the organized crime syndicate that had Yanna and hundreds of others in their clutches. With opposite agendas, David and Yanna had to rely on each other to outwit their cold-blooded enemy.

Fiction & NonFiction New York Times Bestsellers

2009-10-26T13:45:34+00:00

Find them here! This week's bestsellers from the new york times.

Fiction

	1 THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. Robert Langdon among the Masons.
	2 PURSUIT OF HONOR, by Vince Flynn. The counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp must teach politicians about national security following a new Qaeda attack.
	3 NINE DRAGONS, by Michael Connelly. The Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch fights crime at home and in Hong Kong.
	4 THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi
	5 THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.
	6 A TOUCH OF DEAD, by Charlaine Harris. The complete Sookie Stackhouse stories.
	7 HALF BROKE HORSES, by Jeannette Walls. A re-creation of the life of the author’s grandmother, a mustang breaker, schoolteacher, ranch wife and mother of two who grew up in the Southwest in the early 20th century, by the author of “The Glass Castle.”
	8 ROUGH COUNTRY, by John Sandford. Virgil Flowers investigates a string of murders at a Minnesota resort for women.
	9AN ECHO IN THE BONE, by Diana Gabaldon. Jamie Fraser and his time-traveling wife, Claire, encounter pirates on the high seas; the seventh Outlander novel.
	10 THE PROFESSIONAL, by Robert B. Parker. Rich women are turning up dead, and the Boston P.I. Spenser investigates.

NonFiction

	1 HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom. A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.
	2 ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others. Making the case against big government.
	3 HIGHEST DUTY, by Chesley B. Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow. The importance of preparing for the unexpected, by the pilot-hero of Flight 1549.
	4 TRUE COMPASS, by Edward M. Kennedy. The late senator’s autobiography.
	5 MOONWALK, by Michael Jackson. A reissue of a best-selling 1988 autobiography
	6 OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunity — from the author of “Blink."
	7 THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, by Richard Dawkins. Evidence for evolution; a counterattack on advocates of intelligent design.
	8 WHERE MEN WIN GLORY, by Jon Krakauer. The story of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who enlisted after 9/11, and the Army’s cover-up of his death by friendly fire in Afghanistan.
	9 THE MURDER OF KING TUT, by James Patterson and Martin Dugard. Investigating the Boy King’s sudden death.
	10 THE TIME OF MY LIFE, by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi. A memoir by the actor, who died in September, and his wife.

The Christmas Clock

2009-10-21T13:57:59+00:00

When I picked up The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin, I thought it was going to be a very cheery book, but I was surprised. This novella set in Dreyerville, Michigan focuses on six main characters and touches on some very serious topics like Alzheimer’s, broken relationships and the struggles people have when dealing with both.

When I picked up The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin, I thought it was going to be a very cheery book, but boy was I surprised. This 145 page book touches some of the very serious topics of Alzheimer’s, broken relationships and the struggles people have when dealing with both.

Set in Dreyerville, Michigan you get to know six main characters very closely. Follow Sylvia Winters as she comes back home after a battle for her life. Meet a convicted felon named Joe Dixon, who is trying to get his life back together, as well as deal with Sylvia’s return. Watch the household of Doris and Floyd Culver and the ups and downs of a troubled marriage.

Finally, there is Teddy and Lottie Sparks. Teddy is an 8-year-old boy who wants to buy his grandmother, Lottie, an antique clock for Christmas. Read along and watch poor Lottie lose her memories one by one, as the search to find little Teddy a home takes place. There is an underlying love aspect. I very much enjoyed this book. It’s a tear jerker.

Reviewed by Stephanie Short ‘Joker’s Harley’

If you would like to review new books for the library website, attend a "Review New Books @ Your Library" event or email Lissa for more information

John Langan’s Elegant Macabre

2009-10-21T13:34:14+00:00

On a lone island an archaeologist and his assistant unearth a grave next to a large column. The column has different languages, and it reveals a dark past to the island, but this lucky discovery takes a sinister turn. Isolated, the small group is faced with the unknown and a very real threat to their lives. “On Skua Island” is the first story from Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Essays by John Langan.

This collection has five stories all by Langan, and each reflects his unique style that combines the contemporary story with classic ghost stories and tales of horror. Subtle and descriptive, the plot builds to the moment of the revelation of terror. For example, in the story, “Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers” two survivors try to destroy a pack of dog- like creatures that pursue them, but it is more than a tale of survival but the changes that occur to the characters themselves. This is a collection that is both haunting and intriguing.