How do you investigate a murder in a society where the very idea of murder is unthinkable? This is the existential challenge confronting Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a Soviet state security (MGB) officer in the latter years of Stalin’s dictatorship. When he finds evidence that a colleague’s young son has been murdered, he covers it up.  According to the Party line, such a crime is a not possible in the Soviet utopia. To say otherwise is the kind of blasphemy that leads to the Lubyanka prison and a bullet in the back of the head.

Leo Stepanovich’s mind becomes free to inquire only after an enemy denounces him. He loses his important job and cushy apartment, and is sent to work in a miserable Siberian town. There, truth assaults him from all sides. His wife admits that she married him only because she feared his power in the secret police. His colleague’s murdered son, he learns, is only one of dozens of victims of a sadistic serial killer. And the true nature of the Soviet system is becoming clearer every day.

Perhaps you’re thinking that Child 44 is a brooding psychological novel that explores its hero’s moral dilemma in a deep and leisurely way. Nyet! It is a thrilling thriller that grabs you by the lapels and won’t let go. The violence is grisly and plentiful. The chase scenes belong in an over-the-top action movie. (The novel is set to be made into a film, with Ridley Scott directing.) As the story reached its crescendo, with plot bombs exploding right and left, I should have been rolling my eyes at the implausibility of it all. But too late! I was already completely hooked.

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David Zinczenko is the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine. I first noticed his “Eat This, Not That” column in the Yahoo.com Health section. One of the major shortcomings of any diet, according to Zinczenko, is that people do not have much control over how their food is prepared when they eat out at a restaurant.  Obviously you should avoid Double Whoppers if you care about your health and your waistline, but sometimes things are not so obvious: there are other entrees that sound healthy but actually aren’t. Eat This, Not That gives you the tools to make informed choices.

Chapter 1 has a list of the 20 worst foods in America, as well as a restaurant report card of popular fast-food and sit-down restaurants. Some of the grades were surprising to me– Chick-Fil-A gets an A+  while Panera Bread gets a D– but Zinczenko backs up his grade with a short summary of why each restaurant got the grade it did.

Chapter 2 features reviews of 60 popular restaurants. On the left page of each review is a healthy entree that is recommended  (“Eat This”). This includes a nice photograph of the dish, along with its nutritional information. An “Other Picks” section lists other recommended choices. The right page lists dishes that are not recommended  (“Not That”).

I found my share of favorites on the “Not That” side of these reviews. A funny but sobering feature is the “Weapon of Mass Destruction” — an item that can do unusually high damage to your health and waistline. (I did survive one of these weapons recently, the Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger with barbecue sauce and mayo with fries, which has 1,750 calories and 82 grams of fat, 26 of them saturated.) There is also  a “Hidden Danger” warning with a big black exclamation point when an apparently healthy item is sabotaged by a hidden and unadvertised ingredient.

The other chapters provide even more tools to eating wisely. Chapter 4 is a guide to what food to eat and avoid on holidays and special occasions, which is especially appropriate now as we head into the Thanksgiving season (you will want to limit the amount of dark turkey meat after you read this section). Chapter 5 is a guide to supermarket shopping in the same Eat This / Not That format. I’m a big peanut butter fan, and I was surprised that a reduced-fat version is not recommended because …. well, you will have to read the book to find out.

Useful as the reviews are, they are by no means comprehensive, so you may want to check out some other titles in this series:  Eat this, not that! supermarket survival guide : the no-diet weight loss solution,  Eat this, not that! for kids! : thousands of simple food swaps that can save your child from obesity! and Eat This Not That! Restaurant and Fast Food Survival Guide: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution. But this book is a great place to start in finding the right kinds of foods to eat and avoid to help you live a healthier life.

Check the WRL catalog for Eat This, Not That

One of my favorite CDs, Classical 2009 features a variety of pieces performed by some of the biggest names in the classical and classical crossover performing world. If you are a new listener to classical music– or if you are like me and you enjoy discovering new music– you are sure to find something you like on this album, featuring 40 selections and two-and-a-half hours of music.

Several selections are outstanding:

• The Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero does a classical improvisation of the third movement of JS Bach’s Italian concerto that is very interesting and somewhat unusual, especially if you are used to hearing more jazz-infused improvisations done by the likes of the Jacques Loussier Trio and the Swingle Singers
• The King’s Singers do a great  rendition of the traditional folksong “Scarborough Fair”; I’ve heard this sung many times but I’ve never heard such a beautiful arrangement, and the blending of their voices is really amazing
• Sarah Brightman does a beautiful duet with the countertenor Fernando Lima in “Pasion” by Jorge Avendano Luhrs. She has such an incredible voice and it mixes well with Fernando Lima’s high tenor

There are many more artists you’ll enjoy: trumpeter Alison Balsom playing a selection from the Hummel Concerto; soprano Natasha Marsh singing an incredibly clear interpretation of the “Der Holle Roche” (Queen of the Night) aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute; multi-talented pianist Myleene Klaas doing a fine arrangement of Ennio Morricone’s “Il Mercenario: Chi Mai” with the City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Considering the huge selection here, you will no doubt find some pieces that are not to your liking– I usually do not care for heavy orchestral works, so Sir Simon Rattle’s interpretation of Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate Of Kiev” didn’t get much airtime in my CD player– but there is much to enjoy and discover on this album, so it comes highly recommended.

Check the WRL catalog for Classical 2009

1,001 Things They Won’t Tell You dishes out the inside scoop on harmful, hidden business practices, and provides ways for consumers to protect themselves. The book comprises one hundred of the “10 Things They Won’t Tell You” articles from Smart Money magazine–now updated, expanded, and arranged into eleven categories such as “your money,” “goods and services,” “your car” and “your free time.” Each feature is well-laid out, with titles in all-caps (“YOU MAY NEVER SEE THIS SHIRT AGAIN”) followed by a short description of the problem and several ways to avoid or deal with that problem (“when you drop off a garment, be sure to ask for a receipt indicating what you had cleaned”). At the end of each feature is a “Things To Do” list that summarizes the four or five most important things you should do to avoid being taken in.

Some of the business practices Dahl discusses fall in the “false advertising” category: for example, restaurants will pass off cheaper food as higher quality fare, and gas companies tout their gas as superior to the competition’s, when in reality it all comes from the same source. Then there are the problems that business never advertise:

• Warehouse clubs are often crowded with long waits in the checkout aisles while offering a limited selection of merchandise (one tenth of what an average supermarket carries)
• Airlines are bumping more and more passengers from their flights while using ancient planes that run on “Leave it to Beaver”-era technology
• Germs are a common problem in day care centers, fitness clubs and cruise ships and can be a serious health threat.

Some of the things came as a real surprise to me. The little charity cans that you see at the cash registers of local restaurants (I’m a real sucker for the ones with photos of sad-looking dogs and cats) are not what they appear to be: charities will rent their name to these businesses in exchange for a small take of the collections, which can be as low as 1 percent. (Instead of passively dropping your loose change into a charity can, the author recommends you contribute directly to the charity.) There’s a lot here that will shock you– but don’t pick up this book unless you’re prepared to spend several hours absorbed in it: your view on many everyday things will never be the same.

Check the WRL catalog for 1,001 Things They Won’t Tell You

Tomorrow Never Dies  is one of my favorite James Bond films, with plenty of suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat.  Media tycoon Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) has positioned his satellites to provoke a war between Great Britain and China– and his media empire is primed to reap huge financial rewards by covering the fighting. James Bond has 36 hours to uncover the Carver plot before all-out war begins. Before long, Bond meets Wai Lin,  a Chinese agent who is also investigating Elliot Carver, and together they race to prove that Carver and his satellites have caused the provocation.

What is there to like?  Michelle Yeoh is the biggest treat of the movie. She’s a big name in China, known for her martial arts skills on the screen, and she certainly doesn’t disappoint here. She stylishly kicks butt and gets the better of Bond more than once. There are some great action scenes where she shows off her skills,  like when she fends off a gang attack on a Chinese safe house.

Having Bond team up with a female partner who is also an agent of a foreign government is nothing new– think of Barbara Bach as Agent Triple X in The Spy Who Loved Me– but Michelle Yeoh adds a new, more active  dimension to the role. Pierce Brosnan as Bond is as smooth and dapper as ever in this, his second Bond film, and he delivers his action sequences and his witty lines with finesse.  Bond and Yeoh sparkle together on screen,  as when they jump out the window of a skyscraper and plunge thirty stories before kicking their way back inside.

Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives) is superb as Eliot’s wife Paris, an old love interest of Bond whom Bond must pump for information, and Jonathan Pryce does a fine job as the evil media baron. It’s great to see Judi Dench become a regular in the Bond franchise as M, the head of British foreign intelligence and Bond’s boss; she adds a sense of realism to the role, and it’s a treat to see her alongside Geoffrey Palmer (as Admiral Robebuck), who played alongside Dench in the wonderful British comedy As Time Goes By.

If you like this movie, you should definitely check out other Bond films where women agents play a central role, as in the already mentioned The Spy Who Loved Me with Barbara Bach, License to Kill with Carey Lowell, and Die Another Day with Halle Berry. 

Check the WRL catalog for Tomorrow Never Dies

24 is one of the most exciting television shows I’ve ever seen.  It is all about a federal agent named Jack Bauer and the federal agency he works for, CTU– the Counter-Terrorism Unit. They must thwart plots involving various nuclear or biological weapons that pose a serious threat to people in the United States.

The unique format draws you in and hooks you on the story as it unfolds in real time, with each season occurring over one twenty-four hour period and each episode taking up one hour of that day. The writing is great, with action that never stops. Kiefer Sutherland delivers a consistently intense performance as Jack Bauer, and though the supporting cast is not always as good as Sutherland, there are several actors who are great: Dennis Haysbert delivers a commanding performance, first as a U.S. Senator and then as President of the United States, and John Voigt does an admirable job, as you would expect of an actor of his caliber.

Season one is one of the best seasons of 24 (and it is the first season) so it is a great place to start. Jack Bauer finds that he must stop an assassination attempt on a local US Senator, rescue his kidnapped daughter, smoke out a mole within CTU, and identify the secret organization behind these and other nefarious plots. Season one has a surprise ending that will make you want to watch season two right away, so make sure you have the first disc of season 2 checked out when you watch the last disc of season one.

A few caveats: first, though the show is not overtly graphic, it does contain scenes with intense action and violence that may be unsuitable for the young or the squeamish. Second, the mentality of the Jack Bauer character– that he will do whatever it takes to get information (including torture) to save lives– may work in the show but I shudder to think that the “end justifies the means” logic could be used in real life. Third, the show does have its flaws:  some of the situations stretch the believability factor to the breaking point, some of the subplots are not very focused, and some of the seasons get really weird. But the good story-writing, the unique format, and the stellar acting by Kiefer Sutherland and supporting cast members make this intense drama series a must for anyone interested in a good bit of action.

Check the WRL catalog for 24

The library is excited to announce our new collection of downloadable titles for audiobook listeners. These titles are compatible with most digital audio players, including iPods. The collection was purchased through the generosity of the Friends of Williamsburg Regional Library.

To access the collection you will need an active Williamsburg Regional Library card. Titles can be located in the WRL online catalog or from the MyiLibrary page. Titles checkout for up to 28 days, and you can place holds on titles that are checked out to another WRL user. The initial collection consists of a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, including both bestsellers and classic works.  For questions about this new collection, please stop by the Reference Desk at either library, call us at 259-7720, or IM us (Yahoo, Google, AIM, and MSN screen name InstantWRL).

I’ve read a number of books that present themselves as short story collections, but which, when taken as a whole, comprise powerful novels.  I think one reason that this succeeds is that the author can approach the same topic from a number of different angles without losing the narrative thread that ties the whole package together.  Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout succeeds on exactly that level.

The thirteen stories found in the book all share a link to Olive, a smalltown schoolteacher whose prickly exterior hides a prickly inner shell, which in turn conceals a prickly center.  But waaay down deep, Olive has a capacity for tenderness that would utterly surprise those who think they know her.  Olive is a presence in each of the stories – sometimes as the central character, sometimes as an important secondary character, and sometimes as a person just walking through the setting or mentioned in a conversation.  The collective impact of those stories gives a fuller portrait of Olive than most authors would be able to create in a traditional novel twice as long.

Olive herself is a memorable character, but there are others who stand out as well: Olive’s husband Henry, a quietly powerful personality in his own right; a young girl whose legal troubles reveal a deeper problem; and a young woman on the brink of an irreversible act.  The stories that Strout places these characters in are all very different, but her skill at creating them as individuals is consistent.

One reason these stories are so successful is that they mostly take place in a small town in Maine.  Although people come and go, there is enough continuity and rootedness that Strout is able to examine the ripples which emanate from Olive’s presence.  Sometimes those ripples are enough to push another character to safety; at other times they threaten to swamp someone’s fragile existence.  That kind of insight would come across as far-fetched in any other setting.

If you like books structured the same way, you might give Rosina Lippi’s Homestead and Sherman Alexie’s Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven a try.  Both use the short story approach to accumulate details that create an indelible image.  If you’d like to read a book about an unpleasant woman whose life is gradually peeled back, you might try Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel.

Check the WRL catalog for Olive Kitteridge.

The great thing about having kids is that you get to play kid games and pretend you’re doing it for the benefit of the children.  I’ve blogged about childrens books I’ve enjoyed, and about dangerous books I’ve come across – now I have the chance to combine the three in a single post.  Talk about serendipity!

My oldest came home one day with the notion he’d picked up in school that one could build a rocket using a soda bottle.  I was intrigued, so I looked it up on the Intertubes and found simple instructions for making a water-powered rocket.  One rubber stopper, bike pump and needle, and a couple of PVC fittings later, we had a simple launcher.  Pump air into the partially-filled (with water, of course) plastic bottle, and wait for the air pressure to burst the rocket off the launch pad.  The best part about it was the cool spray it gave on a hot summer day, but watching the bottle climb to 75 feet or so was quite impressive.

Paul Jarvis has taken the next step in Soda Pop Rockets.  Starting by modifying the simple launch design, he adds increasingly complex elements until the H2O rocketeer is creating multi-stage missiles complete with parachute recovery systems and sound effects.  He also evaluates each design for its launch parameters – height, angle, and aesthetics.  For those interested in basic trigonometry, Jarvis includes plans for a simple measuring tool that helps determine the altitude you attain.  A warning for those who think this can just be given to the kids – there are a couple of designs that involve high heat and open flame.

On the downside, I got this book in mid-October, just when the temperature plummeted, so I have a feeling I’ll be checking it out again come April or May.  I can’t wait to try some of these.  I might even let the kids help.

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What is it about a ragtag group of nomads that has both inspired and outraged civilizations for four millenia?  In the second book of his Hinges of History series,  Thomas Cahill digs into the larger themes that separate the Jewish peoples from the people around them, and shows how the evolution of a culture, a collection of religious writings, and the history of worship created an unimaginable entity that is present in three of the world’s major religions and most of its modern political structure.

There is possibly no one more qualified to attempt such a feat than Thomas Cahill.  His credentials as a theologian are impeccable, and his work as a scholar and translator is both rigorous and sensitive.  But it is his gift for finding the humanity in the philosophies that he examines that makes his writing approachable and enlightening.  The result is a popular work of history that can withstand the examination of scholars.

So what is the gift of the Jews?  Purely and simply, it is identity.  The identity of the individual, the identity of a society that recognizes individualism, and the identity of a deity that calls for respect towards those individuals.  Prior to Abram’s walk with YHWH, Cahill writes, a single person had no distinct role in the world – he or she was born, served the gods of planting and harvest for a span of years, and died.  The cycle of the world turned on such fatalistic seasons, and no one had anything to look forward to or to look back on.   Like cogs in a wheel, they furnished the motion that ground within the great machine of early civilization.  And like cogs, they were forever interchangeable and anonymous.

Then along comes Avram, a wealthy man from the city of Ur in the Mesopotamian culture of the Chaldeans.  He is picked out and told to set out on a journey that has not yet ended.  And so the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam steps out of the impersonal machine and into a covenant that has repercussions throughout the ages of the world.

Regardless of your spiritual identity, you have been marked by this gift.  It manifests itself in myriad ways – from the idea that it is both possible and necessary to know that you have ancestors to the idea that “…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  You may not believe in a God, you may not follow one of the three major monotheistic traditions, or you may believe that your path is the only true one, but if you’ve ever voted, gone to court, protested, or desired change in your surroundings, you have this idea, this gift, to thank.

Cahill is not writing to proselytize, although he makes his own belief in God plain.  His intent is to lead the reader through the evolution of ideas that we take for granted, showing us how they came to be.  From Avram through the minor prophets, Cahill examines the Old Testament and places markers along the way to show us how that path was recorded even when it was not followed.  But he does it with a light touch, even with an occasional leavening of humor which makes this an immensely enjoyable read.

Check the WRL Catalog for The Gifts of the Jews