Sir Isaac Newton - criminal investigator

Earlier today I posted news about the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. The Royal Society is the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society counts many of the illustrious founders of modern science among its past fellows and members (read more). Sir Isaac Newton was one of the early presidents.

Currently I am reading an exceedingly fascinating book about Sir Isaac Newton. This work of nonfiction, Newton and the Counterfeiter : the unknown detective career of the world's greatest scientist by Thomas Levenson, reads easily, like fiction or like the best of true crime stories. Find this book in our catalog

In 1695, Isaac Newton, having lived reclusively in Cambridge for 30 years moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty’s Mint. He wanted a change of scene, but to move from Cambridge he needed some means of support other than his professorship: which perhaps explains why he took up this unlikely post. Newton could heve treated his post as a mere sinecure and left the duties of his office to lesser and ineffectual civil servants; however, during his three years in office he was notably successful in stamping out counterfeiting (pun intended!). This was vital to the economy of the time: money in the modern sense was just coming into being, but the official coinage was almost completely compromised by counterfeits. Newton brought all his genius to bear on the problem, using the new methods of science he had introduced to the world to detect, track down, prosecute, and convict many individual criminals from his office in the Tower. His chief adversary was a genius of a diferent kind: William Chaloner a brilliant counterfeiter and crime lord. In the courts and streets of London the two played out an epic game of cat and mouse.

There is much to enjoy: the readable, clear, yet technically well-informed style of the author and the extremely detailed, yet never boring description of the work of Newton and fellow natural philosophers; the rich details of society at all levels; the lively depiction of the underworld of London; the battle of the protagonists.

If you like historical true crime you will probably like:

The suspicions of Mr. Whicher : a shocking murder and the undoing of a great Victorian detective by Kate Summerscale.

If you like science writing that reads like fiction:

Longitude : the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel.

Locus SF Awards

The 2009 Locus Award

Winners for best science fiction books and related books were named at a ceremony June 27 in Seattle. Read more about the award winners at Locus Online. Boing Boing observed that the list is a "good place to start your reading if you want to read some of the best stuff out there."
Locus Award winners:
* Science fiction novel: Anathem by Neal Stephenson Find this book in our catalog

* Fantasy novel: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin Find this book in our catalog

* First novel: Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko Find this book in our catalog

* Young adult book: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Find this book in our catalog

* Novella: Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link Find this book in our catalog

* Anthology: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois Find this book in our catalog

* Non-Fiction/Art Book: P. Craig Russell--Coraline: The Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell Find this graphic novel in our catalog

Top Science Writing available in HCPL

The shortlist for the US$16,503 Royal Society Prize for Science Books has just been reported. Sir Tim Hunt, chair of the panel of judges, was reported in The Guardian as saying, "There's clearly a large audience for books that explain science clearly and gracefully, and no shortage of authors."

I am happy to announce that on checking the catalog I found that Harford County Public Library has all five of the shortlist of this prestigeous British award that are available from US publishers: (click on the titles to follow the links to our catalog)
* What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life by Avery Gilbert

* The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes

* Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer by Jo Marchant

* The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

* Your Inner Fish: The Amazing Discovery of Our 375-million-year-old Ancestor by Neil Shubin

Forensic Crime Novels

I just learned something really fascinating from Shelf Awareness, the e-mail newsletter I have mentioned before. The issue for Friday, June 26 asked Ridley Pearson, the author of more than 25 crime fiction novels (as well as a half dozen books for young readers), about the books that have influenced him and about what he is reading at the moment.

Because of my own interest in crime fiction, the part of the news article that really caught my attention was the short description of Pearson's work in this genre. I knew that his crime novels are known for their detailed forensics. What I was not aware of was that research conducted for his novel Undercurrents (Find this book in our catalog) has helped investigators solve three real life homicides! According to Shelf Awarenes, at the request of authorities, Pearson also contributed to the task force attempting to catch the Washington, D.C., sniper.

In 1990, Pearson was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in Crime Fiction. He is currently a visiting professor at the College of International Language and Literature at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Pearson's latest work, is due out shortly. Find this book in our catalog.

For fans of forensic crime novels this looks like the ideal summer read!

Appeal of mysteries often all about the settings, and other thoughts about choosing a good book

When I'm choosing fiction, especially mysteries, to read I often follow kinds of threads or themes: the threads may not be obvious to anyone else but me, but they help me choose when I'm spoilt for choice.

At the moment I am reading books that have to do with zoos. I have just finished Alexandria by Lindsey Davis, which is a mystery in which there are multiple murders in the Museion in Alexandria in the time of Vespasian, the Roman Emperor. The Museion was a center of ancient learning which contained not only The Great Library of Alexandria but also a zoological garden. Find Alexandria in our catalog.

I am following Alexandria with another mystery, this time more of a traditional cozy mystery, called The Anteater of Death. This looks like it is going to be the first one in a new series by author Betty Webb, and features zookeeper Theodora "Teddy" Bentley, a feisty, independent heiress turned working girl in order to thwart the matchmaking ambitions of her socialite mother. I think the series will be a great success because of the likeability of "Teddy" and because of all the careful background details about the zoo. Find this book in our catalog.

If you are having trouble finding a good book to read, you can go to My Next Good Book, a book recommendation service provided by Harford County Public Library on its website. You can create a free user account, log on, and search for books similar to something you have just read and enjoyed. My Next Good Book can be found here.

Romantic Suspense like Carla Neggers' "The Angel" - Great Summer Reads

I read an author interview and profile of Carla Neggers this morning, June 24, in Fresh Fiction News, an online newsletter. It struck me that most of Carla's 50 plus books of romantic suspense would make great summer reads!
In her last book, The Angel, Carla tuned in to the current vogue for the paranormal by introducing ancient celtic myth and a stone angel said to come alive.
Find this book in our catalog.

Plot summary from our catalog: "On a remote stretch of the rugged coast of Ireland, folklorist and illustrator Keira Sullivan pursues the mysterious Irish legend of an ancient Celtic stone angel. As she searches an isolated ruin, she's certain she's discovered the mythic angel, but before she can examine her find, she senses a malevolent presence. Is someone in there with her? Then the ruin collapses, trapping her. Keira's uncle, a Boston homicide detective, enlists the help of Simon Cahill to find his missing niece. Simon, an expert with Fast Rescue, a rapid-response search-and-rescue organization, is trying to keep a low profile after secretly assisting in the takedown of a major criminal network, but he rushes to Ireland, pulling Keira out of the rubble just as she's about to free herself. Simon isn't interested in myths or magic, nor is he surprised when Keira can't find a trace of her stone angel. He doesn't believe it exists. But the gruesome evidence of a startling act of violence convinces him that whatever she found in the ruin, the danger she faces is real. When the violence follows them to Boston - and escalates - Simon and Keira realize that the long-forgotten story that has captivated her has also aroused a killer: a calculating predator who will certainly kill again.

The Mist, Carla Neggers latest book is to come out shortly. Find this book in our catalog Read more on Carla Neggers' website.

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, by David Foster Wallace

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, by David Foster Wallace Find this book in our catalog

Author David Foster Wallace recently passed away tragically in 2008, but his commencement speech to the graduating students of Kenyon College in 2005 preserves something of his integrity and ideals and offers much to us, who were not there to hear his message ourselves. Wallace defines in just a few words the utter importance of a liberal arts education, explaining that such an education bestows upon a student not so much the capacity to think, as the ability to choose what to think about. The difference is keen and of the utmost importance. If we, wrapped up in our everyday world, choose to step outside of our own lives and consider others around us, if we in our day-to-day lives choose to experience not so much our own egocentricity as the possibility of another’s self, we just might understand the essence of compassion. He argues for the importance of freedom, but freedom of a special kind, one we may not have considered before – the freedom to be aware of, to pay attention to, and truly to care about those around us, especially those whom we do not know, the everyday, anonymous human beings, who pass us by without our ever really noticing them, much less caring about them. What makes all the difference is truly seeing them and in this way feeling compassion for them. Wallace’s message is clear and succinct. We are fortunate to have it preserved for us to carry with us from this day on.

Submitted by D. L. S.

Military History Award

Gerhard L. Weinberg has won the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library
Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Read more of the official announcement made June 22.

"Dr. Weinberg is truly a gifted writer of military history who has devoted his skills and talent to produce A World at Arms, perhaps the finest study of World War Two ever attempted by a single scholar," said James N. Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Library. Find this book in our catalog.

See also Readers Place for a list of military history books recommended by Harford County Public Library staff.

Books to Movies - opening June 26

My Sister's Keeper, based on the novel by Jodi Picoult (Find this book in our catalog) opens this Friday, June 26. Shelf Awareness for today, Monday, June 22 had this to say about the movie: "A young girl (Abigail Breslin) who has never questioned her role as bone marrow donor for her older sister (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia, starts to crave medical independence. Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric play the sisters' distraught parents; also includes Alec Baldwin and Joan Cusack."

This is what it says about the book in our catalog:

"New York Timesbestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity."

See our catalog for reviews and excerpts. The reviews make an excellent starting point for discussion. My Sister's Keeper is an outstanding choice for a book group.

Chéri, the movie based on the novel by Colette, also opens June 26.
Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates and Rupert Friend star in this tale of a young man who falls for an aging courtesan in 1920s Paris. Click here for the official website for the movie. The novel was originally published in 1920 and by many is thought to be Colette's best. HCPL will be acquiring copies of the movie tie-in edition, due to be published very soon. Meanwhile the story can be found in Six Novels by Colette. Find this book in our catalog

Summer Reading Websites offer book suggestions

I have been seeing lots of recommendations for summer reading in my e-mail newsletters, professional journals, pop culture magazines, on TV and radio, etc.

Here is a selection of sites you can go to to find something good to read on the beach, or curled up in the air-conditioning on some non-sticky-making couch!

On Morning Edition on June 11, 3 booksellers explained their summer reading choices to Susan Stamberg.
On Morning Edition on NPR this morning (June 19), librarian Nancy Pearl picked her Summer's Best Books and told us why.
The New York Times Book Review for June 19 has The Girls of Summer, a survey of the season's women's fiction.
The Wall Street Journal for May 23 published its The Summer Booklist by Cynthia Crossen.
EW.com has a list 92 In the Shade: books for summer reading.

For summer reading suggestions from your own HCPL librarians, see Readers Place.

Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell

"The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones."

This quotation from William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar evokes an anticipatory frisson in the reader who sees it on the flyleaf of Jennifer Lee Carrell's thrilling mystery, Interred With Their Bones. Find this book in our catalog.

Any reader willing to suspend disbelief and to embark with Shakespearean scholar and director Kate Stanley on a astonishing and gruelling quest to find a lost Shakespearean manuscript while simultaneously saving herself from a stalker will recognize that this quotation has become way more sinister and portentious than when Mark Anthony originally uttered it during his funeral oration for Caesar. Sure enough, it turns up as one of the clues to the whereabouts of documents and letters that will lead to the location of the lost manuscript, and might also unveil the secret of the true identity of William Shakespeare.

The book opens as Kate is directing rehearsals for a new production of Hamlet in the modern Globe Theatre in London. Reluctantly she allows herself to be interrupted by her former mentor, Rosalind Howard, from whom she has been estranged for years. Roz gives her a mysterious box, claiming to have made a groundbreaking discovery, and agreeing to meet Kate elsewhere that evening to explain all. Before Roz can reveal the secret to Kate, the Globe burns to the ground and Roz is found dead . . . murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet’s father. Inside the box Kate finds the first piece in a Shakespearean puzzle, setting her on a high-stakes treasure hunt for the highly valuable manuscript.

As the trail unrolls, Kate is aided by a mysterious security operative, an august Shakespearean actor, a Harvard scholar, and an extravagantly rich grande dame who is a ruthless collector of Shakespeareana. Each one of Kate's confederates has a personal agenda to pursue, and we wonder just how far each one will go; for, as they travel from London to Harvard to the American West their path is littered with dead bodies killed in the manner of the most gruesome deaths in Shakespeare's plays. Who is the killer, and who is stalking Kate herself, whispering terrifyingly in her ear in the dark of the library stacks at night?

People who liked The Da Vinci Code will love this book: there are many tantalizing and ingeneous clues buried in hidden manuscripts, historic libraries, and personal papers. Readers will learn much Shakespearean lore and decifer arcane signs and symbols. There are many twists and turns, at least two mysteries intertwined, and tragic stories of love, conspiracy and death from long ago.

Readers who like this literary adventure may also like these:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

In particular, you will enjoy The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber, which involves a distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death, a lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries, and an encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Find this book in our catalog
Hundreds Hall is a stately manor house, long occupied by the Ayres family. It is a presence and in a way an absence as well in the countryside surrounding it. While it has occupied the lush farmland in the Midlands of England for centuries, it remains inaccessible to the common folk of the surrounding countryside, unless, of course, one is a servant working there. And so it is that Dr. Faraday enters Hundreds, to wait on an ill servant. Faraday, a middle-aged bachelor physician of an only mildly successful practice, has longed to be part of Hundreds, to possess it, since he first saw it at the age of ten, as a guest during a fête. Then he was so taken with the then-beautiful house that he pried a decorative plaster acorn from the wall and secreted it away with him. He has not entered the hall since, until this day, thirty years later, in 1947.

On this first visit, he meets the Ayres family – Mrs. Ayres, her son, Roderick, injured in World War II, and her elder daughter, Caroline. This first encounter also acquaints him with Betty, the shy servant girl, who first hints that something is not right with the house. But what? The house is perfect to Dr. Faraday, who clearly loves the place, even in its now-shabby, run-down state, with overgrown gardens and sagging ceilings.

As he becomes more acquainted with the family, though, he finds that something indeed is wrong. Strange, dangerous things begin to happen. Gyp, the old, gentle family dog, attacks a child, unprovoked. Mysterious brown smudges appear on Roderick’s study walls. His room catches afire, nearly killing him. A speaking tube connecting the closed-off nursery above whistles inexplicably in the connecting kitchen. A knocking sound in the walls leads the residents from room to room on a kind of chase. Footsteps patter in the hallway outside the nursery. Are there natural, logical explanations for all of these odd events? Or is there something else amiss, perhaps emanating from the long departed sister, Susan, who has died years before of diphtheria. Mrs. Ayres seems to think that Susan has come back and whispers words of longing to her, but Faraday, in his scientific logic, sees only madness in these odd reports of unexplained manifestations. While he asserts his clear-headed thoughts, though, the family suffers slow destruction.

Around all of these eerie events and devastating sorrows swirls increasing uncertainty. With the Ayreses clearly out of place in this new world of Labor government and fading family fortunes, their future remains uncertain. But so too does Dr. Faraday feel uncertainty in his profession, as it moves towards the approaching National Health system; in his social position as he longs for that which he cannot have – Hundreds Hall; and finally in his assessment of the Ayres family itself: Are they mad, haunted, even cursed? Is there a force of evil present at Hundreds? Or is it all only the further shift of an old family of good standing to a blurred and faded future of destruction?

Submitted by D. L. S.

Man Gone Down wins International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's richest literary prize, was recently awarded from an international longlist of 147 titles, nominated by libraries around the world, to Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas.

The judges said of this book, "We never know his name. But the African-American protagonist of Michael Thomas' masterful debut, Man Gone Down, will stay with readers for a long time. He lingers because this extraordinary novel comes to us from a writer of enthralling voice and startling insight. Tuned urgently to the way we live now, the winner . . . is a novel brilliant in its scope and energy, and deeply moving in its human warmth." Sounds like an oustanding book group choice to me!

This is what it says about Man Gone Down in our catalog: "beautifully written, insightful, and devastating first novel, Man Gone Down is about a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream he has bargained on since youth. On the eve of the unnamed narrator's thirty-fifth birthday, he finds himself broke, estranged from his white Boston Brahmin wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six-year-old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep his family afloat, four days to try to make some sense of his life. He's been getting by working construction jobs though he's known on the streets as "the professor," as he was expected to make something out of his life. Alternating between his past--as a child in inner-city Boston, he was bussed to the suburbs as part of the doomed attempts at integration in the 1970s--and the preset in New York City where he is trying mightily to keep his children in private schools, we learn of his mother's abuses, his father's abandonment, raging alcoholism, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is an extraordinary debut. It is a story of the American Dream gone awry, about what it's like to feel preprogrammed to fail in life--and the urge to escape that sentence. Michael Thomas's writing recalls some of the great American masters, including Ralph Ellison, but his debut is wholly and distinctly an original. Man Gone Down is a dazzling addition to the literature of and about America today."

We also own at HCPL the audiobook version of Man Gone Down.

"True Blood" HBO series based on Charlaine Harris novel

I saw this morning, both in the Baltimore Sun and in Shelf Awarenes, an e-mail book trade newsletter I subscribe to, that Season 2 of HBO's "True Blood" series debuts this Sunday. According to USA Today, "Series 2 roughly follows Harris's second novel, Living Dead in Dallas," and is "about vampires gingerly entering society after the discovery of synthetic blood eliminates the need--if not always the desire--to feed on humans." Find this book in our catalog

If you like the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse series, you will probably also like these:

The Vampire Academy novels by Richelle Meade

The Vampire Diaries series by L. J. Smith

Argeneau Vampire series by Lyndsay Sands

Gardella Vampire Chronicles series by Colleen Gleason

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton

Death in the Former Colonies

During the end of March and through April, I hungrily awaited each new episode on HBO of the TV miniseries, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The series is based on the hugely popular mystery novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Jill Scott plays heroine Precious Ramotswe, Botswana'a only lady detective. Read a review from NPR.

Seeing this excellent mystery series on TV started me off on a sort of mini reading quest on the theme of books set in the former lands of the British Empire. Mystery readers frequently state that they are hooked by books with exotic or intriguing settings, so I am sure these titles will appeal.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is up to book 10 now: just out is Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. The prioprietor of the Gabarone agency is Precious Ramotswe, a totally engaging heroine - independent, opinionated, highly moral, but creative in how she applies her morality. Sometimes she is interfering, but generally things turn out OK. As McCall Smith said to NPR, "Well, she's a woman of great intuitive ability... She's a very intelligent woman, she's kind, she's forgiving — she's just the sort of person you'd like to sit down and have a cup of tea with. She's fairly typical of many people whom you meet in that part of the world." I spent some years in adjacent South Africa and I have to agree. I recognize McCall Smith's depiction of Botswana and particularly of the people, whose homespun wisdom is a great source of charm for me in these books.

If you enjoy the Botswana setting, you will probably also like a new mystery series by Michael Stanley, featuring the food-loving detective of the Gabarone police department, David "Kubu" Bengu. He has been called the African Columbo. The latest, newly acquired is The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu.

Finally, on this theme of mysteries set in the old territories of the British Empire, I recommend The case of the missing servant : a Vish Puri mystery by Tarquin Hall. Punjabi private detective Vish Puri, proprietor of Most Private Investigators, Ltd., deals only with simple investigations for arranged marriages, until a rich industrialist comes calling, accused of "disappearing" an inconvenient young woman. Again, the people and the exotic setting are a big part of my enjoyment of this book (I haven't quite finished my advance reader's copy yet, but it won't take long). Tina Jordan in Entertainment Weekly wrote, "India captured in all its pungent, vivid glory, fascinates almost as much as the crime itself."

I am sure you will enjoy the contrast of the universal humanity of these outwardly simple yet very wise detectives with all their personal quirks and failings, against the exotic settings of countries still with vestiges of their old-fashioned colonial heritage yet with their own very vibrant culture and way of life.

The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, by Jennifer Worth Find this book in our catalog

Jennifer Worth practiced midwifery in some of the poorest sections of London in the 1950s, providing services to women, many of whom could not or would not otherwise seek medical care in a hospital. Deliveries were done at home, often in a questionable environment, made safer and cleaner through the work of the sturdy, tenacious midwife. Worth examines not just the history of the practice of midwifery in the 20th century, but also the social conditions that made this such a necessary medical service for women in order to spare their health and ensure the safe delivery of their children. Along the way, she reveals something of life in Nonnatus House, with the Midwives of St. Raymund Nonnatus, a mixture of nuns and laywomen, whose professionalism and dedication added a stabilizing force to the lives of the women in the surrounding London neighborhoods.
She opens the door to some very colorful and memorable characters – both pregnant women using the services of the midwives and the women practicing midwifery, making this a book that is at once entertaining and sometimes harrowing.

Submitted by D. L. S.

National Book Festival Scheduled Again for September 26

The National Book Festival is due back in September. Click here for the official site listing events, supporters, sponsors and authors engaged so far.

This 9th annual festival put on by The Library of Congress on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. will again feature over 70 American authors, illustrators and poets making presentations throughout the day in Children, Teens & Children, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Home & Family, and Poetry pavilions.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, September 26, 2009.

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters by Rose George

A book about human waste doesn't sound too interesting, but Rose George's examination of the subject is a real eye-opener. She travels to many countries and interviews those in the waste disposal/sanitation business, as well as villagers, politicians and more. She talks to experts and users and illustrates the plight of many third world countries where the need for clean water cannot be separated from the need for adequate sanitation. Her chapters on American sewage treatment and the use of biosolids on American farmers' fields will certainly make you sit up & take notice. This is a well written, interesting and informative book. It is both entertaining and thought provoking.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. With irreverence and pungent detail, George (A Life Removed) breaks the embarrassed silence over the economic, political, social and environmental problems of human waste disposal. Full of fascinating facts about the evolution of material culture as influenced by changing mores of disgust and decency (the popularity of high-heeled shoes dates back to the time when chamber pots were emptied into the streets)—the book shows how even advanced technology doesn't always meet basic needs: using toilet paper is shockingly unhygienic and millions of government-built latrines in developing countries have been turned into goat sheds and spare rooms due to poor design, a lack of regular water supply or simply because the subsidized (and expensive) cement and stone structures are often more appealing than the village huts. George explores how discussions on the importance of clean drinking water and the eradication of infectious diseases euphemistically address how to handle human waste. From the depths of the world's oldest surviving urban sewers in to Japan's robo-toilet revolution, George leads an intrepid, erudite and entertaining journey through the public consequences of this most private behavior. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Read about Ms. George on her website at:
http://rosegeorge.com/site/about/

If this subject interests you, another book to read is one that is lighter in tone and often funny.

Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization by W. Hodding Carter.

From Publishers Weekly
Though it's a pretty safe bet that the only people who pick up this book will be those who are interested in sewage, the author's easy humor, average homeowner's point-of-view, and excitement for his subject should ensnare the casual browser. The book's also extensive: Carter, a history and nature author, discusses water-delivery and sewage systems from the height of Rome to the sewers of London to present-day Boston. Anecdotes and interviews pair well with thorough history and technical explanation, and Carter reserves a chapter to discuss the plumber himself: his profession, his training, and why, in the case of a nuclear holocaust, plumbers "will be our knights in droopy jeans." Though he can be a little too loose with the toilet-humor (chapter 12 is called "The Power of Poop"), his populist, live-and-in-color approach could make this a crossover hit.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Witty, enlightening, and just plain fun to read."
-- Minneapolis Star Tribune

Orange Prize

Home by Marilynne Robinson (Find this book in our catalog) was the judges' unanimous choice for this year's £30,000 (US$48,893) Orange Prize for best novel written by a woman, which was recently announced in a ceremony at London's Royal Festival Hall.

This is what it says about the book in our catalog: "Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames's closest friend. Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain. Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake. Homeis a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson's greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions."

Grace After Midnight: a memoir by Felicia "Snoop" Pearson and David Ritz

Grace After Midnight: A Memoir, by Felicia “Snoop” Pearson and David Ritz. Find this book in our catalog

If you like celebrity memoirs, you may still want to approach this one with a degree of trepidation. Felicia Pearson played Snoop in The Wire, and in real life she was pretty much the same as on screen, even down to her nickname “Snoop.” Born a crack baby in Baltimore City, Pearson was raised by a loving foster family, but her neighborhood was too great an influence to keep her safe from drugs and violence. Becoming a dealer herself, she felt she was prospering in her own distorted way, but when she killed a woman, she landed in prison for several years. Serving time in prison and the death of some of those close to her led Snoop to an epiphany about her life and the direction she was headed. That and one break would make all the difference. Grace after Midnight reveals a life of hardship and bad choices but also what can come, when finally that left-for-lost person gets the opportunity she needs, that one break that leads a lost person to a far better life.

Submitted by D. L. S.

Cozy Mysteries Make Great Beach Reads

The independent publisher, Midnight Ink has developed somewhat of a reputation for the high number of cozy mystery writers it features in its catalog. Diehard cozy fans might enjoy visiting the Inkspot blog, where several Midnight Ink authors regularly post about writing, their books, and topics of general interest to book lovers.

The hallmark of a cozy is that it's fun. From the novels of Agatha Christie to Murder, She Wrote, cozy mysteries have won over generations of readers with their amateur sleuths, humor, and enjoyable plots. A cozy is a light mystery without significant blood or gore. A body is found but we don't witness the actual murder. The sleuth is often an amateur caught up by circumstances into solving the crime. The important thing is that at the end justice should be seen to be done and balance is returned to the world. Readers often take pleasure in the puzzle to be solved and the intriguing or eccentric characters and setting.

Despite their name, cozy mysteries do not need to be read in front of a roaring fire, but also make great beach reads.

Here are some recent cozies in Harford County Public Library for you this summer:
Handbags and homicide / Dorothy Howell
The anteater of death : a Gunn Zoo mystery / Betty Webb
Paper, scissors, death : a Kiki Lowenstein scrap-n-craft mystery / Joanna Campbell Slan
Murder walks the plank : a death on demand mystery / Carolyn Hart

The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the bedside by Sherwin B. Nuland

The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside, by Sherwin B. Nuland Find this book in our catalog

Sherwin Nuland, a clinical professor of surgery, has years of experience as a physician and as a professor. Over that time, he has collected stories from other physicians about their experiences in and insights into the profession of medicine and the treatment of patients. He gathers here a selection of stories in which colleagues relate their more memorable experiences, as he puts it, in a kind of Canterbury Tales of medicine. Each story reveals some poignancy and great insight. Not all the tales reveal physician heroism; in fact, some show the reader uncomfortable revelations about the not so impressive character of some physicians. Most, however, are tales of thoughtful, careful, caring physicians, who interact with their patients in the best, most noble of ways of doing all they can to serve their patients, heal them, and even save their lives.

Submitted by D. L. S.

Alice Munro Wins Booker International Prize

May 27th, 2009 it was announced that Alice Munro had won the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for fiction. The Canadian short story writer was the third writer to win the prize. See the official announcement for more details.

The prize is awarded every two years. Unlike the annual Booker, which recognizes a single work of fiction in English, the International Prize is awarded for an entire body of work and is open to writers from around the world. The first International Prize was went to Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in 2005; Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe won it in 2007.

Munro has a new collection of stories coming out in November in the US: Too Much Happiness: Stories.

These are some of Munro's works available in Harford County Public Library:
Runaway
The View from Castle Rock
Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage
The Love of a Good Woman

See also Readers Place for a list of short story collections by other writers.

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo

One of the benefits of being a librarian is that you sometimes come across a book you would never have looked for & it turns out to be really good. Public radio reporter Algeo has written an excellent book that takes the reader back to the 1950s & the end of the Truman presidency. In June of 1953, a few months after he left office, Harry & Bess set off on a road trip that took them from Missouri to Washington, New York & Pennsylvania, & back to Missouri. They had no secret service detail & they were trying to travel anonymously. As Algeo follows their route he regales us with entertaining, interesting & informative facts, from politics, local culture, history & much much more. This is definitely a story about people though, not dry facts, & the reader learns such a lot - Harry did not even have a president's pension when he set out on his trip, he and Bess had returned to the same house they had lived in before his presidency, in Independence, Missouri, he loved cars & liked to speed & often took walks. Whatever your political affiliation this is a book about a time past, when a farmer could become a president & when the role of ex-president was a lot different than it is today. It is not a history book but a reflection of two lives, of their stories, of those they meet, & of the time & place of a past era.
As Algeo says "The story of their trip, then, is the story of life in America in 1953, a time of unbridled optimism and unmitigated cold war fear. It is also the story of the monumental changes that have occurred since then."

Matthew Algeo's book website
http://www.trumanroadtrip.com/page/page/6814760.htm

"While presidential biographies by David McCullough and Edmund Morris might be likened to Beethoven symphonies in their magisterial sweep, 'Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure' resonates Aaron Copeland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man' - brassy, bright, energetic, brief and declaratively American."
Washington Times

Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller

Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller (Find this book in our catalog)

Alexandra Fuller, best known for her memoir of a childhood in Africa during the Chimurenga War in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (Find this book in our catalog), returns to Africa after a sojourn of several years in Wyoming with her American husband and their children. While visiting her parents in Zambia, she meets K., a white former Rhodesian/Zimbabwean. K. is a seasoned soldier from what might have been one of the most brutal wars in modern history, the Mozambican Civil War, lasting from 1977 until 1992. K. is a damaged man, a brute haunted by his own brutality. When Fuller meets him, he is the owner of a banana plantation near her parents’ fish farm. Despite his new profession as a farmer, he is still very much dogged by the ghosts of his past crimes and mortal sins. Even his conversion to evangelical Christianity has not soothed his tortured soul. Perhaps God has forgiven him his sins, but K. has not done so for himself, and for good reason, since it might be difficult to forgive oneself for such great evils done in the past.

When Fuller suggests that K. travel back to Mozambique, with her as company, he hesitates for only a brief time. While he revisits the country where he had committed his greatest sins, the journey could serve as a way of releasing him from the lingering guilt that consumes him. For K.’s part, he sees the possibility of Fuller’s staying with him, since he suspects God has sent her to him as a life partner. Delusion abounds.

The journey to and within Mozambique takes them not only through a land of lush beauty but also through the memories of a tortured man. As Fuller and K. get farther into Mozambique, K. reveals more and more of his actions in the war, actions that make it hard to like him or even to have sympathy for him. Yet Fuller has far more compassion for her fellow human beings, seeing the victims of war to be not just civilians or those fighting for independence or for the integrity of their new country, but also those who fought the war on the other side.

The outcome of the journey is not surprising: no real resolution follows. What is surprising is what and who Fuller and K. meet on the way, and how despite great evil, a land can still provided breathtaking beauty and serenity, while a people can still find room for forgiveness, even if that forgiveness remains hard to find.

Submitted by D. L. Sebly, staff