My LINKcat AccountWell. We have actually passed the official start of spring and the weather has once again, snapped cold. Somehow, waking up in the pre-dawn hours, hearing the tentative start of the dawn chorus as the robins, sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, and the occasional red-winged black bird start warming up the voices and then looking at the thermometer and seeing that it's 12 degrees, just seems wrong. Low temperatures in the teens seem not too unreasonable at the beginning of March, but we have entered the last full week of March and are still seeing highs in the 30s. This really needs to stop! I just wish I could figure out who to complain to (besides you, gentle reader). I guess this weather is good if you're tapping maple sugar and I guess this weather is good if you live in low-lying areas prone to flooding because it slows the melting. In the meantime, while we're waiting for warmer temperatures, the spring list of new titles from the publishers keeps rolling in. There are plenty of new books to help you while away the time listed below. Enjoy
New Non-Fiction
My gentle Barn / by Ellie Laks. Traces the uplifting story of a Los Angeles-based nonprofit animal rescue that has saved hundreds of creatures from unsafe conditions, describing how the author and shelter volunteers rehabilitate their charges, many of whom become companions for at-risk inner-city and special-needs children.
A nice little place on the North Side : Wrigley Field at one hundred / by George Will. Chronicling the highs and lows over the 100-year history of Wrigley Field, America's leading columnist explores the home of the hapless Chicago Cubs as a way to talk about his upbringing, the growth of Chicago, the history of baseball and what brings us back to root for the home team.
The Hungry Girl diet / by Lisa Lillien. A diet based on the Hungry Girl philosophy shares the author's signature "super-sizing" techniques combined with guilt-free recipes in a four-week plan that includes tips for staying on target, dining out and making strategic choices at the grocery store.
Astoria : John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's lost Pacific empire : a story of wealth, ambition, and survival / by Peter Stark. Drawing on original source material, this gripping true story, filled with high adventure and incredible hardship, documents the 3-year expedition, from 1810 to 1813, to establish Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
The Bohemians : Mark Twain and the San Francisco writers who reinvented American literature / by Ben Tarnoff. Traces the birth of modern America as reflected by the writings of Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warrant Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith, placing their achievements and personal lives against a backdrop of the post-Gold Rush era in California.
Savage harvest : a tale of cannibals, colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's tragic quest for primitive art / by Carl Hoffman. Retracing the steps of Michael C. Rockefeller who, in 1961, went missing during an expedition to New Guinea, an avid traveler immerses himself in the world of former headhunters and cannibals to uncover generations of a local native tribe who seemingly know the truth behind Rockefeller's disappearance.
New Fiction
Mentats of Dune / by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson. A sequel to "Sisterhood of Dune" finds Mentat School founder Gilbertus Albans making uneasy compromises to survive the Butlerian fanatics while ambitious student Valya Harkonnen plots revenge on a hero she blames for her family's downfall.
Raising Steam : a Discworld novel / by Terry Pratchett. A latest entry in the best-selling Discworld series traces the remarkable changes occurring in Ankh-Morpork-Discworld with the arrival of a first steam engine, which culminates in a new and challenging job for Moist von Lipwig.
William Shakespeare's The empire striketh back : Star Wars part the fifth / by Ian Doescher. A follow-up to the best-selling "William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope" returns readers to a galaxy far, far away, where a brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power and soliloquize in elegant iambic pentameter.
The divorce papers : a novel / by Susan Rieger. A romantic comedy told through emails, letters, transcripts and articles follows a lively divorce through the eyes of cynical young law associate Sophie Diehl, who represents a humiliated woman throughout a separation from an ambitious doctor husband. A first novel.
Shotgun lovesongs : a novel / by Nickolas Butler. Sharing a childhood in small-town Wisconsin before going their separate ways with careers and families, Hank, Leland, Kip and Ronny are reunited during a visit marked by culture clashes, respective pursuits of meaning and a woman who inspires passion in each of them. A first novel.
Tempting fate / by Jane Green. Struggling with a fatalistic view about aging and friends who desperately cling to youth, Gabby recklessly forges a long-distance friendship with a younger man in spite of her happy family life and finds the relationship threatening everyone she loves. By the best-selling author of "Another Piece of My Heart".
The Midnight witch / by Paula Brackston. Inheriting her late father's role as the Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven, duke's daughter Lilith prepares for a confrontation with a powerful group of sorcerers who would exploit a magical Elixir under her guardianship, an effort that is challenged by her illicit love for a man outside her class and magical circle.
Seducing Ingrid Bergman : a novel / by Chris Greenhalgh. The award-winning screenplay writer for "Coco Chanel & Igor Stavinsky" imagines the secret love affair between the beautiful "Casablanca" star and famous war photographer Robert Capa against a backdrop of post-war Paris and Hollywood.