11/4: New at the library this week

Movies:

Where the wild things are (view clips, trailers and interviews)
The happy elf (view trailer)

(all movies are on dvd unless otherwise noted)

Audiobooks

Seduced by moonlight / Laurell K. Hamilton
I am Meredith Gentry, P.I. and Princess Merry, heir to the throne of Fairie.
Now there are those among me who whisper I am more.
They fear me even as they protect me. And who can blame them?
I’ve awakened the dazzling magic that’s slumbered in them for
thousands of years. But the thing is, I can’t figure out why.

My aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, is no longer distracted by her usual sadistic hobbies. Her obsession has turned unwaveringly to me. The mission to get me pregnant and beat my cousin Prince Cel to the crown is taking longer than expected. Even though I spend each night with the Queen’s Ravens, my immortal guards, no child has come of our decadent pleasures. But something else is happening. My magic courses through me uncontrollably. And as I lock my half-mortal body with their full-Sidhe blooded ones, the power surges like never before.

It all began with the chalice. I dreamed of it, and it appeared, cool and hard, beside me when I awoke. My guards know the ancient relic well—its disappearance ages ago stripped them of their vital powers. But it is here with us now. My touch resonates with its force, and they’re consumed with it, their Sidhe essences lit up by it. But even as they cherish me for this unexpected gift, there are those who loathe me for it. Me, a mongrel, only half fey and part mortal. The Unseelie court has suffered for so long, and there are some who would not have it weakened further by an impure queen. My enemies grow in number every day. But they do not know what I am capable of. Nor, for that matter, do I. . . . (Meredith Gentry Series, #3; read a sample chapter)

10/28: New at the library this week

Audiobooks

Suspect / Michael Robotham (unabridged; cassettes)
At forty-two, psychiatrist Joe O’Loughlin seems to have it all: a thriving practice, a beautiful wife, an adoring daughter. But Joe’s snug, happy world is crumbling. Recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he’s dreading the inevitable and all too palpable deterioration of his body and mind. Then, when the police ask for his help in solving the brutal murder of a woman they assume is a prostitute, he’s horrified to recognize the victim as a nurse he once worked with, and with whom he had a bit of a past. As Joe begins to suspect that one of his patients may be responsible, the police zero in on him.(read a sample chapter)

Mark Twain / Geoffrey C. Ward; Dayton Duncan; Ken Burns (unabridged; two copies: cassettes & CD)
A companion audiobook to the 4-hour PBS television series.
Using material from Twain’s works, diaries, and letters, Mark Twain follows the great writer/humorist/lecturer/people’s philosopher from the Hannibal, Missouri of his childhood, to the Europe and Middle East of his travels (and hilarious travel books); from his beginnings as a newspaperman to his storied life as (in his own words) “the most conspicuous man on the planet.”(read an exerpt)

The rise of Theodore Roosevelt / Edmund Morris (abridged; cassettes)
A biography published on the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president. (read a sample chapter)

The king of torts / John Grisham (unabridged; cassettes)
The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.

As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts… (read an exerpt)

8/29: New at the library this week

Audiobooks

Lord John and the brotherhood of the blade / Diana Gabaldon (unabridged; CD)
Seventeen years earlier, Grey’s father, the Duke of Pardloe, shot himself, days before he was to be accused of being a Jacobite traitor. By raising a regiment to fight at Culloden, Grey’s elder brother has succeeded in redeeming the family name, aided by Grey, now a major in that regiment. But now, on the eve of the regiment’s move to Germany, comes a mysterious threat that throws the matter of the Duke’s death into stark new question, and brings the Grey brothers into fresh conflict with the past and each other.

From barracks and parade grounds to the battlefields of Prussia and the stony fells of the Lake District, Lord John’s struggle to find the truth leads him through danger and passion, ever deeper, toward the answer to the question at the centre of his soul–what is it that is most important to a man? Love, loyalty, family name? Self-respect, or honesty? Surviving both the battle of Krefeld and a searing personal betrayal, he returns to the Lake District to find the man who may hold the key to his quest: a Jacobite prisoner named Jamie Fraser. Here, Grey finds his truth and facesa final choice: between honour and life itself.

Genghis : bones of the hills / Conn Iggulden (unabridged; CD)
From the fierce cold plains of Mongolia to the Korean Peninsula, Genghis’s brothers, sons, and commanders have made emperors bow, slaughtering vast armies of fighting men. But as Genghis enters a strange new land of towering mountains and arid desert, he stirs an enemy greater than any he has met before. Under his command, Shah Ala-ud-Din Mohammed has thousands of fierce Arab warriors, teeming cavalry, and terrifying armored elephants. When Genghis strikes, the Arabs prove their mettle. On the verge of defeat, Genghis is forced to leave his own vast encampment, and the women and children in it, in the path of an enraged, savage enemy.

4/1: New at the library this week

Audiobooks

The fiery cross / Diana Gabaldon (unabridged; cassette)
Voyager / Diana Gabaldon (unabridged; cassette)
Drums of autumn / Diana Gabaldon (unabridged; cassette)

Movies:

Under the same moon
School of rock
The Savages
(all movies are on dvd unless otherwise noted)

Books:

Blind alley / Iris Johansen
Eve Duncan’s job is to put a face on the faceless victims of violent crimes. Her work not only comforts their survivors—but helps catch their killers. But there is another, more personal reason that Eve Duncan is driven to do the kind of work she does—a dark nightmare from a past she can never bury. And as she works on the skull of a newly discovered victim, that past is about to return all over again. (read an exerpt)

3/15: New at the library this week

Audiobooks:

J.D. Robb collection 5: Seduction in death, Reunion in death, Purity in death / J. D.Robb (cassettes)
Seduction in Death: Dante had been courting his victim in cyberspace for weeks before meeting her in person. A few hours later, she was dead. Detective Eve Dallas is playing and replaying the clues in her mind. The candlelight, the music, the rose petals strewn across the bed – he hadn’t intended to kill her.

Reunion in Death: At exactly 7:30 p.m., Walter Pettibone arrived home to over a hundred friends and family shouting, “surprise!” At 8:45 p.m., a woman with emerald eyes and red hair handed him a glass of champagne. One sip of birthday bubbly, and he was dead. The woman’s name is Julie Dockport. Detective Eve Dallas remembers her all too well.

Purity in Death: Louie Cogburn had spent three days holed up in his apartment, staring at his computer screen. When someone knocked at his door, Louie picked up a baseball bat, opened the door, and started swinging… The first cop on the scene fired his stunner twice and Louie died instantly. When a second man dies under nearly identical circumstances, Detective Eve Dallas starts racking her brain for answers and for courage to face the impossible…that this might be a computer virus able to spread from machine to man…

2/2: New at the library this week

Audiobooks:

A wrinkle in time / Madeleine L’Engle — Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg’s father, who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government. (Age Range: 12 and up: Time Quartet Series, #1; read an sample chapter; casettes)

The Eyre affair / Jasper Fforde — When asked to summarize his creation is a single sentence, Jasper Fforde described it as “a literary detective thriller with romantic overtones, mad-inventor uncles, aunts trapped in Wordsworth poems, global multinationals, scheming evildoers, an excursion inside the novel Jane Eyre, dodos, knight-errant-time-traveling fathers, and the answer to the eternal question: Who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays?” (Thursday Next Series, #1; read an exerpt)

1/26: New at the library this week

Books:

• Hand of evil / Judith A. Jance — With his hand trapped in the door of a speeding car, a man struggles to remain upright as he’s dragged along a deserted stretch of San Juan Road in Phoenix’s South Mountain Preserve. It’s the perfect place to drive a man to his grave — literally. Starting with a crime so gruesome even prowling coyotes keep their distance from the remains, a killer begins crisscrossing the Southwest on a spree of grisly murders. (Ali Reynolds Series, #3; read an sample chapter)
• Taste of home baking book — Discover more than 725 recipes for irresistible baked goods-from cookies, bars, brownies, cakes, cheesecakes, pies, bread puddings, and meringues to yeast breads, quick breads, coffee cakes, muffins, biscuits, and more-and bask in the warm, complex aroma of a fresh-baked loaf of bread, the luscious whiff of cinnamon rolls, or the sweet, fruity fragrance of pies. Best of all, they are all made with easy-to-find ingredients. Every recipe has been tasted and reviewed by the professional home economists of the Taste of Home test kitchens. More than 675 full-color photographs illustrate mixing and baking methods and showcase the delectable baked results!
• World without end / Ken Follett — takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas-about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race-the Black Death. (read an sample chapter)
• Violet goes to the country / Melanie Cecka; Jan Karon — Violet and her owner, Alice, are off to the country for a visit. Violet is as excited as can be, but she keeps getting in the way of Alice’s uncle Leo (who is “not much of a cat person”). (Age Range: 4 to 8)
• Payback / Jasmine Cresswell — For twenty-five years multimillionaire businessman Ron Raven played the loving husband and father— to two very different households. But when Ron disappears, his deception is revealed. Now it’s time for…PAYBACK. (Ravens Trilogy, #3; read an exerpt)
• Missing / Jasmine Cresswell — For twenty-five years, multimillionaire businessman Ron Raven fooled everyone, successfully playing the loving husband and father to two very different households. But when Ron suddenly disappears, the truth about his deception is revealed. Now two families are left alone with their questions, while the one man who holds the answers is . . . MISSING. (Ravens Trilogy, #2; read an sample chapter)
• Suspect / Jasmine Cresswell — For twenty-five years, multimillionaire businessman Ron Raven had been fooling everyone, successfully playing the loving husband and father to two very different households. But when Ron suddenly disappears, the truth about his deception is revealed. Now faced with the ultimate betrayal, his families are left questioning who can be trusted . . . and who remains SUSPECT. (Ravens Trilogy, #1; read an sample chapter)
• Double cross / James Patterson — A spate of elaborate murders in Washington D.C. has the whole East Coast on edge. It is like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There’s only one thing Alex knows: this killer adores an audience. (Alex Cross Series, #13)
• The New Year’s quilt / Jennifer Chiaverini — As Sylvia, a late-in-life newlywed, has discovered, love can enter our lives at any age. Yet before she can truly delight in her present happiness, she must face the sorrow hidden in her past — her own role in the tragic circumstances that left her estranged from her sister, Claudia, until it was too late to make amends. Vowing not to repeat the mistake with her new daughter-in-law, Amy, who opposed Sylvia’s marriage to her father, Andrew, Sylvia must convince Amy that family is more precious than pride. (read an exerpt)
• Home to Holly Springs / Jan Karon — This novel takes Father Tim on a journey to his hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi. A host of fascinating encounters with people along the way ensure that the trip is colorful, though as Father Tim arrives in response to a mysterious summons, he may discover that home is where the heart is but also where secrets are hidden.
• Escape / Carolyn Jessop ; Laura Palmer — When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy. (read an exerpt)
• A week from Sunday / Dorothy Garlock — Adrianna Moore’s recently passed father has left his entire estate to his lawyer, who tells her that to regain her inheritance, she must marry him “a week from Sunday.” Driving desperately to a new life, Adrianna collides with Quinn Baxter’s truck, falls for him, and must deal with Quinn’s scheming housekeeper as well as the spurned lawyer, who continues to track Adrianna in order to force her to marry him. (read an sample chapter)
• On Tall Pine Lake / Dorothy Garlock — Nona Cinrad has been making it throught “by the hardest.” Each day is a struggle–to go on after her parents’ sudden death, to win her rightful inheritance from her untrustworthy half-brother, and to raise her high-spirited younger sister. Hired to manage a fishing camp deep in the Arkansas woods, the strong-willed redhead is eager to settle down…until she clashes with two men. One is a mysterious, well-dressed stranger who seems to know her. The other is the camp’s new owner, Simon Wright. (read an sample chapter)
• The abduction / Mark Gimenez — Ben Brice lives alone in the New Mexico wilderness where he battles memories of Vietnam with oceans of Jim Beam. Miles away in Texas, his estranged son, John, an internet geek-turned-billionaire, half watches his daughter Gracie’s soccer game while conducting business on his cell phone. When her mother Elizabeth arrives, the coach reports that her uncle has already collected Gracie. But Gracie has no uncle – she was kidnapped.

12/10: New at the library this week

Audiobooks:

• Mount Vernon love story: a novel of George and Martha Washington / Mary Higgins Clark — The novel charts the course of George’s tentative courtship of the young widow Martha Custis. (read an exerpt)
• Little altars everywhere / Rebecca Wells — The story unfolds in the alternating voices of Vivi and her husband, Big Shep, along with Sidda and her siblings, as well as the almost-but-not-quite family Chaney and Willetta. Wells embraces nearly thirty years of life on the Walker plantation in Thornton, Louisiana, where the cloying air of the bayou and a web of family secrets at once shelters, traps, and defines this utterly original community of souls. (read a sample chapter)
• A tree grows in Brooklyn / Betty Smith — The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg. (read a sample chapter)
• Balance of power / Richard North Patterson — President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancée, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington–the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA). (read an exerpt)

11/15: new at the library this week

Audiobooks:

• Blow fly / Patricia Daniels Cornwell — Dr. Kay Scarpetta is visiting Florida, hoping to get away from the pressures of her job. No such luck: down in the Sunshine State, she becomes involved in a terrifying international intrigue with ramifications that reach deep into Kay’s own life. (Kay Scarpetta Series, #12; cassette; read an exerpt)
• Bleachers / John Grisham — High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty. (cassette; read a sample chapter)
• Trace / Patricia Daniels Cornwell — Now freelancing from south Florida, Dr. Kay Scarpetta returns to Richmond, Virginia, the city that turned its back on her five years ago. Investigating the death of a young girl, she must follow the twisting leads and track the strange details in order to make the dead speak-and to reveal the sad truth that may be more than even she can bear. (Kay Scarpetta Series, #13; CD; read an exerpt)
• Post-mortem / Patricia Daniels Cornwell — Four women with nothing in common, united only in death. Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster – a “Mr. Nobody”, moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage . . . but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner – Kay Scarpetta – is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay’s investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead . . . (Kay Scarpetta Series, #1; cassette; read an exerpt)
• The time traveler’s wife / Audrey Niffenegger — This is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap (cassette; read a sample chapter)