Booklist articles from December 2007

Booklist archives from December 2007

Duma Key.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Duma Key. By Stephen King. Jan. 2008. 624p. Scribner, $28 (1 -4165-5251-0). SF/Fantasy. A job-site accident almost kills Twin Cities building contractor Edgar Freemantle. He loses his right arm and the ability to recall readily the names...

A Father's Law.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... A Father's Law. By Richard Wright. Jan. 2008. 288p. HarperPerennial, paper, $14.95 (9780061349164). General Fiction. The centenary of Richard Wright's birth will spark renewed appreciation for a man whose call to letters and telling truth...

The First Patient.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The First Patient. By Michael Palmer. Feb. 2008. 384p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312343538). Crime Fiction. Palmer's latest medical thriller is a bit of a mixed bag. The premise is interesting (the U.S. president's new personal physician...

Honor Thyself.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Honor Thyself. By Danielle Steel. Feb. 2008. 323p. Delacorte, $27 (9780385340243). General Fiction. Steel's latest damsel-in-distress is Academy Award-winning actress Carole Barber, whose career is on self-imposed hiatus following the...

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories. By Steven Millhauser. Feb. 2008. 256p. Knopf, $24 (9780307267566). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Millhauser, author of many intriguing previous works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin...

Biography search.(Booklist Online)
December 1, 2007... Biography Search Recently, a Booklist Online subscriber e-mailed us to ask about the best ways to look for biographies on the site. A popular and frequently requested genre in public libraries, biographies can be tricky to find because,...

Lush Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * Lush Life. By Richard Price. Mar. 2008. 464p. Farrar, $26 (9780374299255). General Fiction. Price (Samaritan, 2003)is a respected writer, but if he hasn't won the literary acclaim he deserves, perhaps it's because he focuses so often on...

The Third Angel.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * The Third Angel. By Alice Hoffman. Apr. 2008. 288p. Crown/Shaye Areheart, $25 (9780307393852). General Fiction. Over the course of writing more than two dozen works of fiction, Hoffman has created her very own form, the heartbreak fairy...

Bill Mauldin: A Life up Front.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front. By Todd DePastino. Feb. 2008. 320p. illus. Norton, $27.95 (9780393061833). 070.442. Scheduled to be published on the fifth anniversary of cartoonist Bill Mauldin's death, this biography coincides with the...

The Rolling Stone Interviews.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Rolling Stone Interviews. Ed. by Jann S. Wenner and Joe Levy. 2007.480p. Little, Brown/Back Bay, paper, $17.99 (0-316-00526-6). 080. That strangely worshipful pop-culture chronicle, Rolling Stone, is 40 years old, and founder Wenner...

Experiments in Ethics.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Experiments in Ethics. By Kwame Anthony Appiah. Jan. 2008. 236p. Harvard, $22.95 (0-674-02609-8). 170. Venturing into hotly contested terrain, Appiah compels both philosophers and ordinary people to rethink the way they distinguish good...

American Indians and the Law.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... American Indians and the Law. By N. Bruce Duthu. Feb. 2008. 368p. Penguin, $21.95 (9780670018574). 342.73. In the latest offering in Penguin's Library of American Indian History, Duthu, law professor and member of Louisiana's Houma tribe,...

Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest. By John K. Wilson. 2007. 192p. illus. Paradigm, $22.95 (9781594514760). 328.73092. Wilson, author of several books on political figures, studied law under presidential candidate Obama and watched his...

Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob. By Bob Delaney and Dave Scheiber. Jan. 2008. 256p. illus. Sterling/Union Square, $19.95 (1-4027-5443-4). 364.1. In the early 1970s, Bob Delaney was a New Jersey state trooper. When he was approached...

Judas--Apostle and Traitor?(READ-alikes: Marvin Meyer's Judas)(books about Judas Iscariot )(Book review)
December 1, 2007... By gathering canonical and noncanonical texts in the same volume, Marvin Meyer's Judas demonstrates the imaginative theological ferment in early Christianity. A similar ferment about Judas preoccupies our own time, although it is directly...

Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism: A Call to Action.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism: A Call to Action. By George Weigel. Dec. 2007. 208p. Doubleday, $15.95 (9780385523783). 320.5. Catholic neocon Weigel is lucid and sober as, in 15 "lessons," he advances what the West must do to...

Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends about the Infamous Apostle of Jesus.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends about the Infamous Apostle of Jesus. By Marvin Meyer. Dec. 2007. 192p. HarperOne, $22.95 (0-06-134830-9). 226. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Judas was the apostle who identified Jesus so...

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: Tales of the First Amendment. By Anthony Lewis. Jan. 2008. 224p. Basic, $25 (0-465-03917-0). 342.7308. Freedom of expression is a freedom that Americans take for granted and occasionally abuse. Lewis,...

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. By Walter Russell Mead. 2007.464p. Knopf, $27.95 (0-375-41403-7). 327.09. Foreign policy expert Mead has painstakingly detailed and analyzed the rise and uninterrupted...

Homo Politicus: The Strange and Barbaric Tribes of the Beltway.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Homo Politicus: The Strange and Barbaric Tribes of the Beltway. By Dana Milbank, Jan. 2008. 320p. Doubleday, $26 (0-385-51750-5). 306.209753. Potomac Man is a species particular to the Washington, D.C., area, with unflattering parallels to...

An Irish Eye.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... An Irish Eye. By Gerry Adams. Feb. 2008. 288p. Brandon/Mount Eagle, $22.95 (9780863223709). 320.9415. In A Farther Shore (2003), Sinn n president Adams narrated the roller coaster of politics and diplomacy that culminated Fein the Good...

Living like Ed.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Living like Ed. By Ed Begley. Jan. 2008. 340p. Clarkson Potter, paper, $18 (9780307396433). 333.72. Begley spins off his newfound HGTV publicity to write an enormously helpful book on the subject of green living. In short sections divided...

The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics of W. E. B, Du Bois and Paul Robeson. By Murali Balaji. Dec. 2007. 496p. Nation, paper, $15.99 (1-56858-355-9). Scholar and journalist Balaji brings an appreciation for the global impact of these...

My Life as a Traitor.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... My Life as a Traitor. By Zarah Ghahramani and Robert Hillman. Jan. 2008. 256p. Farrar, $23 (0-374-21730-0). 365. Born a few years after the Iranian Revolution, Ghahramani grew up in a liberal, open-minded household in Tehran. Her father was...

Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them. By David Anderegg. Jan. 2008. 288p. Tarcher, $24.95 (1-58542-590-7). 371.95. The nerd is possibly the last of the "harmless" stereotypes, aimed at people who may suffer socially in childhood...

The Nuremberg Legacy: How the Nazi War Crime Trials Changed the Course of History.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Nuremberg Legacy: How the Nazi War Crime Trials Changed the Course of History. By Norbert Ehrenfreund. 2007. 288p. Palgrave, $24.95 (I-4039-7965-0). 341.6. Ehrenfreund, now a judge, covered the Nuremberg trials in 1945 as a cub...

Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way through Politics, Love, and Obedience in the Middle East.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Unveiled: A Woman's Journey through Politics, Love, and Obedience. By Deborah Kanafani. Jan. 2008. 272p. Free Press, $25 (0-7432-9183-2). 306.89. Kanafani's fascinating autobiographical tale portrays several strong Middle Eastern women,...

Woman of the House: The Rise of Nancy Pelosi.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Woman of the House: The Rise of Nancy Pelosi. By Vincent Bzdek. Jan. 2008. 272p. Palgrave, $24.95 (0-230-60319-X).320. Although Pdosi is less than one year into her tenure as Speaker of the House, she has engendered more controversy than...

A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market. By Jim Rogers. Dec. 2007. 240p. Random, $26.95 (1-4000-6616-6). 332.67. Like his around-the-world motorcycle trip chronicled in Investment Biker (1994), author,...

The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea. By Bob Burg and John David Mann. Jan. 2008. 132p. Penguin/Portfolio, $19.95 (9781591842002). 650.1. The powerful business idea referenced in the title is that "shifting the focus...

The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. By Russ Alan Prince and Lewis Schiff. Feb. 2008. 240p. Doubleday/Currency, $23.95 (0-385-51927-3). 330.16. Prince and Schiff, wealth experts, describe...

This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor. By Susan Wicklund. Jan. 2008. 288p. PublicAffairs, $24.95 (1-58648-480-X). 610.92. Whether one is pro-choice or not, there can be little doubt that the women Wicklund presents, who find...

It's Not about the Money: Unlock Your Money Type to Achieve Spiritual and Financial Abundance.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * It's Not about the Money: Unlock Your Money Type to Achieve Spiritual and Financial Abundance. By Brent Kessel. Jan. 2008. 320p. HarperOne, $24.95 (9780061234064). 332.024. This is a financial-planning guide unlike any other on the...

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table. By Sara Roahen. Feb. 2008. 288p. Norton, $24.95 (9780393061673). 641.5. From elegant Galatoire's to a backyard crawfish boil, from po-boy shop to sno-ball stand, and into her own...

Akira Kurosawa: Interviews.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Akira Kurosawa: Interviews. Ed. by Bert Cardullo. Dec. 2007. 224p. Univ. Press of Mississippi, $50 (1-57806-996-3); paper, $20 (1-57806-997-1). 791.4302. Kurosawa's Rashoman was the film that put Japanese cinema on the world's cultural...

Driftless: Photographs from Iowa.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Driftless: Photographs from Iowa. By Danny Wilcox Frazier. 2007. 128p. illus. Duke Univ., $39.95 (0-8223-4145-X). 779. Frazier photographs, in black and white, what he knows from growing up in Iowa near the Mississippi. He shows activities...

The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family. By Jonathan Carr. Jan. 2008. 432p. illus. Atlantic Monthly, $25 (0-87113-975-8). 780 Anti-Semitism and the fortunes of Germany are inextricably bound up in the...

The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World. By Alexander Roy. Dec. 2007. 336p. HarperEntertainment, $25.95 (0-06-122793-5). 796.72. It wasn't until the author's father was a dying man that Roy...

Knockout: The Art of Boxing.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Knockout: The Art of Boxing. By Ken Regan. 2007. 260p. illus. Insight Editions, $75 (9781933784311). 796.83. In 1964, Regan got his first major assignment--to photograph a fight for Sports Illustrated. Heavyweight champ Sonny Liston was...

The Road to Blue Heaven: An Insider's Diary of North Carolina's 2007 Basketball Season.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Road to Blue Heaven: An Insider's Diary of North Carolina's 2007 Basketball Season. By Wes Miller. Dec. 2007. 368p. illus. Pegasus, $25.95 (9781933648576). 796.323. Miller began his basketball career at North Carolina as a...

Childhood: An Autobiographical Fragment.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Childhood: An Autobiographical Fragment. By Moses Rosenkranz. Dec. 2007. 232p. Syracuse Univ., $24.95 (9780815631781). 830.9. Rosenkranz was born in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina in 1904, and his first volume of poetry was...

Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. By Beth Lisick. Jan. 2008. 288p. Morrow, $24.95 (9780061143960). 818. Lisick, writer and performance artist, reviews her year of...

Looking for Hamlet.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Looking for Hamlet. By Marvin W. Hunt. Dec. 2007. 256p. illus. Palgrave, $27.95 (1-4039-7036-X). 822. The most often performed of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is also, as far as Hunt could ascertain, the most performed "of any play written...

Ezra Pound, Poet: A Portrait of the Man and His Work, v.1: The Young Genius, 1885-1920.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * Ezra Pound, Poet A Portrait of the Man and His Work, v.1: The Young Genius, 1885-1920. By A. David Moody. Jan. 2008. 544p. illus, Oxford, $47,95 (9780199215577). 8.11.52. I want" declared a teenage Ezra Pound, "to write... the greatest...

Riding toward Everywhere.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Riding toward Everywhere. By William T. Vollmann. Jan. 2008. 288p. illus. Ecco, $26.95 (9780061256752). 818. Vollmann follows his intimate inquiry into world poverty, Poor People (2007), with a travelogue. But of course he doesn't travel...

A Cartload of Scrolls: 100 Poems in the Manner of T'ang Dynasty Poet Han-shah.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... A Cartload of Scrolls: 100 Poems in the Manner of T'ang Dynasty Poet Has-shah. By James P. Lenfestey. Dec. 2007. 120p. Holy Cow! paper, $15.95 (9780977945856). 811. The mythological ninth-century Chinese hermit-poet Han-shan came forcibly...

Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles. By Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop. Tr. by Anne McLean. 2007. 360p. illus. Archipelago, paper, $20 (9780979333002). 914.44. In the late spring of 1982, Argentine...

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. By Eric Weiner. Jan. 2008. 329p. Twelve, $25.99 (0-446-58026-0). 910.4. A self-proclaimed grump, Weiner has spent a decade as a foreign correspondent for...

The Complete Pompeii.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Complete Pompeii. By Jeanne Berry. 2007. 256p. illus. Thames & Hudson, $40 (9780500051504). 937.7. The author's assertion that "Pompeii can justifiably be described as the most famous archaeological site in the world" is followed by...

Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium. By Jonathan Harris. Dec. 2007. 304p. Continuum, $27.95 (1-84725-179-X). 949.61803. By the fourth century of the Christian era, the western areas of the Roman Empire were increasingly impoverished and...

The Faces of World War I: The Great War in Words and Pictures.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Faces of World War I: The Great War in Words and Pictures. By Max Arthur. Jan. 2008. 288p. illus. Sterling, $34.95 (1-84403-561-1). 940.3. Photograph albums about the battles of World War II are not scarce, and neither are photo albums...

Four Letters to the Witnesses of My Childhood.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Four Letters to the Witnesses of My Childhood. By Helena Ganor. 2007. 160p. illus. Syracuse Univ., $19.95 (9780815608691). 943.805. Ganor was born in Lvov, Poland, in 1936. After earning an MD in 1957, she practiced internal medicine in...

God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215. By David Levering Lewis. Jan. 2008. 384p. illus. Norton, $27.95 (9780393064728). 940.1. The author of a celebrated two-volume biography of W.. E. B. DuBois--W. E. B. Du Bois:...

Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers. By Kay Bailey Hutchinson. 2007. 416p. illus. HarperCollins, $25.95 (9780061138249). 920. Using a formula similar to her best-selling American Heroines (2004), Senator Hutchinson has crafted another...

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt. By Nina Burleigh. Dec. 2007. 288p. HarperCollins, $25.95 (9780060597672). 962.03. Accompanying the French army that invaded Egypt in 1798 were 150 savants whose most famous...

Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People. 2007.400p. illus. Knopf, $75 (9780307266224). 920.073. Nearly 40 years after the first Vogue Houses, Garden, People debuted, another appears-as glorious as the first, yet with a different aesthetic...

We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust. By Patrick Henry. 2007. 179p. Catholic Univ. of America, $59.95 (9780813214931). 940.53. This chilling book focuses on the lives of two rescuers: Daniel Trocme, a young...

The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy. By Bill Hayes. Dec. 2007. 304p. Ballantine, $24.95 (0-345-45689-0). 611.0092. Hunting for the Gray in Gray's Anatomy, Hayes discovered scant records about the author of the classic medical...

Biobazaar: The Open Source Revolution and Biotechnology.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Biobazaar: The Open Source Revolution and Biotechnology. By Janet Hope. Jan. 2008. 362p. Harvard, $27.95 (9780674026353). 346.04. Science is kept vital and ethical by peer review. But the commercialization of life sciences, particularly the...

The History of Astronomy.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The History of Astronomy. By Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest. Dec. 2007. 288p. illus. Firefly, $59.95 (1-55407-325-1). 520. Astronomy, the most ancient and modern of sciences, invites heroic treatment, populated as it is by some of most...

The Living Cosmos.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Living Cosmos. By Chris Impey. Dec. 2007. 432p. Random, $27.95 (1-4000-6506-2). 576.8. Aimed squarely at newcomers to general-interest science books, Impey's survey of exobiology will pique curiosity about whether life beyond Earth...

The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter. By Helen R. Quinn and Yossi Nir. Jan. 2008. 286p. illus. Princeton, $29.95 (9780691133096). 539.7. The standard model of particle physics is Quinn and Nir's arena for discussing one of its...

A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford. By Richard Reeves. Dec. 2007. 160p. illus. Norton, $23.95 (9780393057508). 530.092. Reeves is notable for writing first-rate presidential biographies, so writing about a...

Newton.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * Newton. By Peter Ackroyd. Dec. 2007. 192p. Doubleday/Nan A. Talese, $21.95 (0-385-50799-2). 530.092. The acclaimed biographer of Blake here contemplates the sclentist whom Blake blamed for reducing the world s beautiful mysteries to...

The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret.(Young adult review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... * The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret. By Seth Shulman. Jan. 2008. 256p. Norton, $24.95 (9780393062069). 621.38509. As Charlotte Gray depicts him in Reluctant Genius (2006), Alexander Graham Bell was a high-strung...

Nets, Puzzles, and Postmen: An Exploration of Mathematical Connections.(Young adult review)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Nets, Puzzles, and Postmen: An Exploration of Mathematical Connections. By Peter M. Higgins. Jan. 2008. 288p. Oxford, $29.95 (9780199218424). 510. "Little mysteries," avers Higgins, "often harbour deep principles and can yield rich...

Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are. By Daniel Nettle. Dec. 2007. 304p. Oxford, $19.95 (9780199211425). 155.2. Psychology has long striven to be a hard science, able to crunch numbers and amass physical evidence. Nettle says that...

Porsche: The Legend; 1948 to Today.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Porsche: The Legend; 1948 to Today. By Giancario Reggiani. Dec. 2007. 408p. illus. Firefly, $85 (1-55407-309-X). 629.222. This book's format is oversize, and its actual physical weight is staggering, but this beautifully illustrated,...

The Soul of a Rhino: A Nepali Adventure with Kings and Elephant Drivers, Billionaires and Bureaucrats, Shamans and Scientists, and the Indian Rhinoceros.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Soul of Rhino: A Nepali Adventure with Kings and Elephant Drivers, Billionaires and Bureaucrats, Shamans and Scientists, and the Indian Rhinoceros. By Hemanta Mishra and Jim Ottaway. 2007. 228p. illus. Globe Pequot, $24.95 (9781599211466)....

The Story of Measurement.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Story of Measurement. By Andrew Robinson. 2007. 224p. illus. Thames & Hudson, $34.95 (9780500513675). 530.809. This generously illustrated title on the history of measurement will be a delight to anyone with a modicum of interest in the...

Top 10 Sci-tech books.(science and technology books)(List)
December 1, 2007... Mathematical puzzles, a startling new theory of the universe, why diets don't work, what impact humankind is having on the ecosystem, and the secrets of redwoods and snakes inspired some of the best science and technology books of the past...

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. By Mark Lynas. Jan. 2008. 328p. National Geographic, $26 (9781426202728). 551.6. How best to convey the facts about global warming? Many scientists present intricately detailed histories of life...

The Sourcebook of Decorative Stone: An Illustrated Identification Guide.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Sourcebook of Decorative Stone: An Illustrated Identification Guide. By Monica T. Price. 2007. 288p. illus. Firefly, $39.95 (1-55407-254-9). 691. In calling this a sourcebook for decorative stone (granite, marble, charoite, and other...

Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation. Ed. by George Wuerthner. 2007. 312p. illus. Chelsea Green, $60 (9781933392660). 577.27. Monster trucks, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, dune buggies, jet...

The Void.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Void. By Frank Close. Feb. 2008. 176p. illus. Oxford, $19.95 (9780199225903). 530.1. The physics of the vacuum occupies this lean volume. Asking what remains after removing everything from space, British physicist Close departs from...

Who's Afraid of Marie Curie?(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Who's Afraid of Marie Curie? By Linley Erin Hall. Dec. 2007. 300p. Seal, paper, $15.95 (1-58005-211-8). 305.43. In an effort to expose the reasons there are fewer women in science and technology than men, Hall conducted an enormous amount...

Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher. By Lenore Hart. Jan. 2008. 384p. St. Martin's, $24.95 (0-312-37327-9). Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer's spirited sweetheart in Mark Twain's novel, gets her due in Hart's outing, which finds Becky...

Careless.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Careless. By Deborah Robertson. Feb. 2008. 303p. MacAdam/Cage, $23 (1-59692-275-3). When a neglected brother and sister walk across the Australian desert on their way to summer camp, you know tragedy can't be far behind. Fortunately, it...

Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Ellington Boulevard: A Novel in A-Flat. By Adam Langer. Jan. 2008. 352p. Spiegel & Grau, $24.95 (0-385-52205-3). Langer's Crossing California (2004) and The Washington Story (2005) depicted Chicago with a native's affection. He's living in...

The Expeditions.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Expeditions. By Karl lagnemma. Jan. 2008. 336p. Dial, $24 (9780385335959). It is hard to ignore that Iagnemma is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although there is a distinguished literary tradition of...

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. By Joshilyn Jackson. Mar. 2008.311p. Grand Central, $23.99 (0-446-57965-3). The third novel by the author of Gods in Alabama (2005) explores the complicated relationship between a woman and her family, both...

Darkmans.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... Darkmans. By Nicola Barker. Dec. 2007. 848p. HarperCollins/Perennial, paper, $17.95 (9780061575211). At a daunting 800-plus pages, this epic comedy, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, demands total immersion. And those willing...

Reading (and writing) reviews.(At Leisure)
December 1, 2007... I know it seems I'm always dispensing advice, but here's another piece: don't put yourself in Bill Ott's debt. My ordeal started simply enough with me e-mailing for permission to use examples of Booklist reviews in a workshop session on how...

The Loved Ones.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2007... The Loved Ones. By Alia Mamdouh. Tr. by Marilyn Booth. Dec. 2007. 264p. Feminist, paper, $15.95 (1-55861-556-3). Written in exile from Iraq, and winner of the 2004 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for the best novel in Arabic, Mamdouh writes about...