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Summary in our catalog:  “An exhilarating journey of natural renewal through a year with MacArthur fellow Carl Safina Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina’s The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four points of the compass, from the high Arctic south to Antarctica, across the warm belly of the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific, then home again. We meet Eskimos whose way of life is melting away, explore a secret global seed vault hidden above the Arctic Circle, investigate dilemmas facing foraging bears and breeding penguins, and sail to formerly devastated reefs that are resurrecting as fish graze the corals algae-free. “Each time science tightens a coil in the slack of our understanding,” Safina writes, “it elaborates its fundamental discovery: connection.” He shows how problems of the environment drive very real matters of human justice, well-being, and our prospects for peace. In Safina’s hands, nature’s continuous renewal points toward our future. His lively stories grant new insights into how our world is changing, and what our response ought to be.”

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Summary in our catalog:  “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. -Acts 20:24 (ESV) Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life,” says Billy Graham, known by many as God’s Ambassador. “I would have never guessed what God had in store for me, and I know that as I am nearing home, He will not forsake me the last mile of the way.” In Nearing Home this man of faith-now in his nineties-explores the challenges of aging while gleaning foundational truths from Scripture. Billy Graham invites us to journey with him as he considers the golden years while anticipating the hope of being reunited with his wife, Ruth, in his heavenly home that eclipses this world. “When granted many years of life, growing old in age is natural, but growing old with grace is a choice,” says the author. “Growing older with grace is possible for all who will set their hearts and minds on the Giver of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Join Billy Graham as he shares the challenges of fading strength but still standing strong in his commitment to finishing life well. “Explore with me not only the realities of life as we grow older but also the hope and fulfillment and even joy that can be ours once we learn to look at these years from God’s point of view and discover His strength to sustain us every day.” -BILLY GRAHAM

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Visit De Robertis’s website for information about the author & her writing. http://www.carolinaderobertis.com/

Posted by Julia

  The Sojourn

Summary of the book in our catalog: “A 2011 National Book Award Finalist in Fiction, The Sojourn is the story of Jozef Vinich, who was uprooted from a 19th-century mining town in Colorado by a family tragedy and returns with his father to an impoverished shepherd’s life in rural Austria-Hungary. When World War One comes, Jozef joins his adopted brother as a sharpshooter in the Kaiser’s army, surviving a perilous trek across the frozen Italian Alps and capture by a victorious enemy. A stirring tale of brotherhood, coming-of-age, and survival, that was inspired by the author’s own family history, this novel evokes a time when Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, and Germans fought on the same side while divided by language, ethnicity, and social class in the most brutal war to date. It is also a poignant tale of fathers and sons, addressing the great immigration to America and the desire to live the American dream amidst the unfolding tragedy in Europe. The Sojourn is Andrew Krivak ‘s first novel. Krivak is also the author of A Long Retreat: In Search of a Religious Life , a memoir about his eight years in the Jesuit Order, and editor of The Letters of William Carlos Williams to Edgar Irving Williams, 1902-1912 . The grandson of Slovak immigrants, he grew up in Pennsylvania, has lived in London, and now lives with his wife and three children in Massachusetts where he teaches in the Honors Program at Boston College.”

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  Engines of Change : a history of the American dream in fifteen cars by Paul Ingrassia (Find in our catalog)

Summary in our catalog:  “A narrative like no other: a cultural history that explores how cars have both propelled and reflected the American experience– from the Model T to the Prius. From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66, from the lore of Jack Kerouac to the sex appeal of the Hot Rod, America’s history is a vehicular history–an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the Corvette, the Beetle, and the Chevy Corvair, as well as the personalities and tales behind them: Robert McNamara’s unlikely role in Lee Iacocca’s Mustang, John Z. DeLorean’s Pontiac GTO , Henry Ford’s Model T, as well as Honda’s Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through these cars and these characters, Ingrassia shows how the car has expressed the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility. He also takes us through the rise of American manufacturing, the suburbanization of the country, the birth of the hippie and the yuppie, the emancipation of women, and many more fateful episodes and eras, including the car’s unintended consequences: trial lawyers, energy crises, and urban sprawl. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.”

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  Prophecy: a Thriller 

Bruno, like Brother Cadfael, is a very sympathetic character.  Both are exiled from home, Cadfael from Wales, Bruno more violently from Italy.  He has fallen foul of the Inquisition because of the book he has published on the infinite nature of the Universe.  Devoting himself to the pursuit of knowledge,  the price Bruno has paid is high.  He is lonely, having only one friend, Philip Sidney.  Through Sidney he has become an agent of the spymaster, Walsingham.  Thus more tension is set up when Bruno is asked to spy on his host and patron in an effort to discover the details of an invasion plot involving the French, the Spanish and the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots.  Bruno is conflicted because of  his loyalties to the French Ambassador and his loyalties to England, the country in which he feels free to pursue his philosophical researches.

In fact, this progressive-seeming intellectual freedom is becoming more and more of an illusion.  It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when Jupiter and Saturn align – an astrological phenomenon that occurs once every thousand years is said to signal the end of an age.  The streets of London are abuzz with horrific predictions of events to come.  Pamphlets predict the end of Elizabeth. It is death to be found reading them, let alone to print them.  Bruno must be careful that his enemies do not use his association with the royal astrologer, John Dee to destroy him.  Superstition and fear are closing people’s minds, science is viewed as magic, and the state is starting to clamp down on all freedoms in the name of stability.  Bruno and many others have to ask how much they can turn a blind eye to draconian actions of the state when state security is threatened.  Elizabeth herself is finding it harder to protect John Dee from church and state, especially when two of her court ladies are found murdered in the royal palace with astrological symbols cut into their skin.  Rumors of black magic abound, but Elizabeth refuses to believe the killer could be someone in her own court.  Walsingham would like Bruno to find proof of this, as well as solid evidence of the invasion plot, so that he can convince his Queen to move against the enemies of England including Mary Stuart.  Bruno is convinced that the plot and the murders are somehow interrelated.

This is an historical thriller, not a cozy mystery, so that Bruno’s life is in jeopardy many times as he plays his dangerous double game.  There is plenty of action as Bruno tracks his quarry and evades capture and death himself.  As the publisher’s blurb says, “Just as in Heresy, S. J. Parris’ gorgeous writing and remarkable sense of place fully transport the reader.”  This is an “utterly gripping” novel!

Editor

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White (Find in our catalog)

Summary in our catalog: “A new, incisive history of the transcontinental railroads and how they transformed America in the decades after the Civil War.”

Editor

Summary in our catalog: “A revelatory look at why we dehumanize each other, with stunning examples from world history as well as today’s headlines. “Brute.” “Lice.” “Vermin.” “Dog.” These and other monikers are constantly in use to refer to other humans–for political, religious, ethnic, or sexist reasons. Human beings have a tendency to regard members of their own kind as less than human. This tendency has made atrocities like the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, and the slave trade possible, and yet we still find it in phenomena such as xenophobia, homophobia, military propaganda, and racism. This book draws on a mix of history, psychology, biology, anthropology and philosophy to document the pervasiveness of dehumanization, describe its forms, and explain why we so often resort to it. Psychologist David Livingstone Smith posits that this behavior is rooted in human nature, but gives us hope in also showing us that change is possible.”–From publisher description.

Editor

I pounced on this book as soon as I saw it appear in the library because I had so much enjoyed two of Mark Mills’ previous books, The Savage Garden and The Information Officer.  I was not disappointed!  You will enjoy House of the Hunted if you too like riveting stories of the era between the two World Wars with all its intrigue and political turmoil, a rich atmospheric setting in a foreign locale and lots of thrilling suspense.

From the word go we are drawn in to this tale of espionage and danger when we see a young pregnant woman about to attempt to escape a Soviet prison in Petrograd in 1919.  The reason Irina is in prison and under imminent threat of summary execution remains a mystery that informs the whole of the book, but the focus switches swiftly to that of Tom Nash a British “diplomat” who had gone unauthorized to Petrograd to rescue Irina and failed.  The book is Tom’s story: how his failure colored his career and led to his early retirement to a private Mediterranean retreat where his wealthy and arty expat friends congregate every year for their annual holidays.  This summer of 1935 on the Cote d’Azur the past comes calling for Tom, who has to develop an elaborate plan to protect himself  and his beautiful and innocent goddaughter from a potentially endless succession of assassins sent by a mysterious enemy.  He had hoped that he could forget the past deeds of his old job as an intelligence operative, but Tom’s peace is shattered when an unknown hit man tries to kill him in his sleep.  He is sure someone knows his secrets and that the attempt on his life will not be the last.  Relying on his old instincts Tom begins to suspect everyone in his quiet community of artists, diplomatic service friends and expats: could one or more of them be a foreign agent?  He finds himself turning into the person he used to be – a ruthless, dangerous man.

This book has something for everyone:  a gripping mystery with plenty of suspense and plot twists, a glimpse into the bohemian and leisured life of the privileged on vacation in the thirties, a narrator with an engaging manly yet sensitive voice, a cast of vividly drawn characters, a hint of romance, and lots of action and mayhem.  The publishing industry tells us that espionage books are making a come-back, often with a different spin on them than before.  If you liked The Expats you will probably like this one.

Editor

  Adult fiction: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (Find in our catalog)

“Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while at the same time an old friend of hers resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny.”

  Adult nonfiction: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef  by Gabrielle Hamilton (Find in our catalog)

“Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin. Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years.”

  Adult Debut: The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht (Find in our catalog)

“Remembering childhood stories her grandfather once told her, young physician Natalia becomes convinced that he spent his last days searching for “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal. As Natalia struggles to understand why her grandfather, a deeply rational man would go on such a farfetched journey, she stumbles across a clue that leads her to the extraordinary story of the tiger’s wife.”

Editor