Booklist articles from June 2009

Booklist archives from June 2009

Blood's a Rover.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Blood's a Rover. By James Ellroy. Sept. 2009. 656p. Knopf, $26.95 (9780679403937). Crime Fiction. Ellroy, author of the classic L.A. Quartet, finally finishes his Underworld U.S.A. trilogy. American Tabloid (1995) and The Cold Six...

Crossers.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Crossers. By Philip Caputo. Oct. 2009. 480p. Knopf, $27.95 (9780375411670). General Fiction. Caputo has written with feeling and intelligence about people and issues in settings ranging from Vietnam to Sudan. In this rich,...

The Defector.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Defector. By Daniel Silva. July 2009. 480p. Putnam, $26.95 (9780399155680). Crime Fiction. Silva's thrillers bring readers the best of all spy worlds. The action roars along, touching down in both glamorous settings and...

Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day. By Diane Ackerman. Sept. 2009. 208p. Norton, $23.95 (9780393061734). 500. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ackerman contemplates the many faces of dawn by way of her...

The Devil's Company.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Devil's Company. By David Liss. July 2009. 384p. Random, $25 (9781400064199). Crime Fiction. Liss' third Benjamin Weaver novel finds the eighteenth-century British "thief-taker" (a kind of detective specializing in recovering...

Intervention.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Intervention. By Robin Cook. Aug. 2009. 448p. Putnam, $25.95 (9780399155703). Crime Fiction. The author of more than 20 medical thrillers strikes again. A forensic pathologist, Jack Stapleton, becomes embroiled in an...

Little Bird of Heaven.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Little Bird of Heaven. By Joyce Carol Oates. Sept. 2009.480p. Ecco, $25.99 (9780061829833). General Fiction. Zoe Kruller is as close to glamorous as life gets in the rough river town of Sparta, New York. Sexy, flirtatious, and...

A Princess of Landover.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... A Princess of Landover. By Terry Brooks. Sept. 2009. 352p. Del Rey, $26 (9780345458520). SF/Fantasy. After almost 15 years, Brooks returns to magical Landover in this sequel to Witches' Brew (1995) that continues the adventures of...

Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim. By Anne Rice. Oct. 2009. 288p. Knopf, $25.95 (9781400043538). General Fiction. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although Rice's latest is a departure from her recent books chronicling the life of...

Sacred Hearts.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Sacred Hearts. By Sarah Dunant. July 2009. 432p. Random, $25 (9781400063826). Historical Fiction. The best-selling author of The Birth of Venus (2003) and In the Company of the Courtesan (2006) re-creates the rarified world of the...

Storm Cycle.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Storm Cycle. By Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen. July 2009. 416p. St. Martin's, $26.95 (9780312368036). Crime Fiction. Taking "World Wide Web" to its extreme, the Johansens weave a sinuous thriller that pits a supercomputer against...

The White Queen.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The White Queen. By Philippo Gregory. Aug. 2009. 448p. Touchstone, $26.99 (9781416563686). Historical Fiction. The fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses, during which the two branches of the mighty Plantagenet royal line fought one...

The Winds of Dune.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Winds of Dune. By Brian Herbert end Kevin J. Anderson. Aug. 2009. 448p. Tor, $27.99 (9780765322722). SF/Fantasy. The latest installment of the Dune saga takes place immediately following the events in Dune Messiah (1969). Paul,...

Rain Gods.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Rain Gods. By James Lee Burke. July 2009. Simon & Schuster, $25.95 (9781439128244). Crime Fiction. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Burke brings back a character from one of his early novels, Lay Down My Sword and Shield (1971)....

If Einstein Had Been a Surfer: A Surfer, a Scientist and a Philosopher Discuss a "Universal Wave Theory" or "Theory of Everything.".(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... If Einstein Had Been a Surfer: A Surfer, a Scientist and a Philosopher Discuss a "Universal Wave Theory" or "Theory of Everything." By Peter Kreeft. June 2009. 178p. St. Augustine's, $17 (9781587313783). 100. Kreeft brings back...

You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall. By Colin Ellard. July 2009. 240p. Doubleday, $24.95 (9780385528061). 152.14. Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of--all of us, actually,...

An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town. By David Farley. July 2009. 304p. Gotham, $25 (9781592404544). 232.9. Farley's idiosyncratic travel memoir limns his search for the,...

And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture. By Bill Wasik. June 2009. 208p. Viking, $25.95 (9780670020843). 303.48. The more time we spend online, the more rapidly the texture, tone, and pace of our lives...

The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality. By Hans-Georg Moeller. June 2009. 201p. Columbia Univ., $79.50 (9780231145084); paper, $24.50 (9780231145091). 171. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Taoist scholar Moeller recommends a "negative"...

Why I'm happy.(The Manley Arts)
June 1, 2009... Every public library where I worked had the same staff fights: should we be nice or nasty to the homeless, should we filter the computers in the children's room and should we shelve the biographies separately or integrate them into the...

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. By Richard Wrangham. June 2009. 320p. Basic, $26.95 (9780465013623). 394. 1. Tracing the evolution of humans from their ape predecessors presents a number of puzzles. Although chimpanzees...

Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One. By Elliott J. Gorn. June 2009. 288p. illus. Oxford, $24.95 (978019530483 I). 364.152. "To explain how the Dillinger story was created, interpreted, and...

Muslim Women Reformers: Inspiring Voices against Oppression.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Muslim Women Reformers: Inspiring Voices against Oppression. By Ida Lichter. June 2009. 530p. Prometheus, $27.98 (9781591027164). 323.092. Lichter chronicles oppression against women in Muslim societies around the world in...

The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture. By Nathan Rabin. July 2009. 368p. Scribner, $25 (978i416556206). 306.09. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity (1995), the main character, Rob,...

The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James. By Laura James. June 2009. 320p. Sterling/Union Square, $19.95 (9781402760693). 364.152. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Laura James is no...

Murder in the Name of Honour: The True Story of One Woman's Heroic Fight against an Unbelievable Crime.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Murder in the Name of Honour: The True Story of One Woman's Heroic Fight against an Unbelievable Crime. By Rana Husseini. June 2009. 272p. NBN/Oneworld, $24.95 (9781851685974). 364. 1. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This nonfiction...

You Can Adopt: An Adoptive Families Guide.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * You Can Adopt: An Adoptive Families Guide. By Susan Caughman and Isolde Motley. July 2009. 272p. Ballantine, paper, $16 (9780345504012). 362.73. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This thorough and honest resource stands out among other...

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. By Colin Beavan. Sept. 2009. 304p. Farrar, $25.00 (9780374222888)....

A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All. By Sarah Culberson and Tracy Trivas. July 2009. 368p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312378790). 362.734092. Clearly loved by the white...

Reagan's Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Reagan's Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster. By Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson. June 2009.480p. Crown, $32.50 (9780307238610). 327.73047. Say good-bye to the caricature of...

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. By Christopher Caldwell. July 2009.416p. Grand Central, $30 (9780385518260). 304.808. The issues of "undocumented" (read "illegal") workers and a porous...

Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink. By Jeff Johnson. July 2009. 272p. Spiegel & Grau, $24.95 (9780385530521). 391.6. Fans of the TV show Miami Ink should gravitate toward this memoir written by a veteran...

What I Thought I Knew.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... What I Thought I Knew. By Alice Eve Cohen. July 2009. 180p. Viking, $24.95 (9780670020959). 306.87. In 1999, Cohen, a writer and performer of solo plays, was 44, divorced with an 8-year-old adopted daughter, and engaged to Michael,...

Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola. By Mark Thomas. June 2009. 384p. illus. Nation, paper, $16.95 (9781568584317). 338.7663620973. Thomas is a British comedian and self-styled "recovering Coca-Cola drinker"...

Busted: Life inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Busted: Life inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown. By Edmund L. Andrews. June 2009.224p. Norton, $25.95 (9780393067941). 332.7. Economics reporter Andrews presents his findings from extensive research on the causes of the current...

The Economic Naturalist's Field Guide: Common Sense Principles for Troubled Times.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Economic Naturalist's Field Guide: Common Sense Principles for Troubled Times. By Robert H. Frank. June 2009. 240p. Basic, $26 (9780465015115). 330. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The concept of behavioral economics--that...

The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth. July 2009. 320p. Crown, $24.95 (9780307396075). 577.27. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Science journalist Dumanoski proceeds from the...

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City. By Greg Grandin. June 2009.432p. Holt/Metropolitan, $27.50 (9780805082364). 307.76. In the 1920s, a cartel of Dutch and English rubber barons held a monopoly on...

Rich: The Rise and Fall of American Wealth Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Rich: The Rise and Fall of American Wealth Culture. By Larence R. Samuel. July 2009. 320p.AMACOM, $24.95 (9780814413623). 305.5. "In this country there are now more people with more money than any other civilization in history,"...

The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath. By Geoff Colvin. June 2009. 192p. Portfolio, $24.95 (9781591842965). 658.4. Colvin passionately argues for C-suite...

Arctic Circle: Birth and Rebirth in the Land of the Caribou.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Arctic Circle: Birth and Rebirth in the Land of the Caribou. By Robert Leonard Reid. 2009.256p. illus. Godine, $27.95 (9781567923506). 508.798. Reid's yearning for the Arctic crystallized when he met Fred Meader in 1977. A...

Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials. By Alex O'Meara. June 2009. 256p. Walker, $25 (9780802716965). 615. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When O'Meara was presented with an opportunity to participate...

The Book of the Moon.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Book of the Moon. By Rick Stroud. July 2009. 368p. illus. Walker, $27 (9780802717344). 523.3. A miscellany of all things lunar, scientific, superstitious, and literary, Stroud's volume provides light, recreational distraction....

The Smartest Animals on the Planet: Extraordinary Tales of the Natural World's Cleverest Creatures.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Smartest Animals on the Planet: Extraordinary Tales of the Natural World's Cleverest Creatures. By Sally Boysen. 2009. 192p. illus. Firefly, $35 (9781554074563). 591.5. Charles Darwin referred to the "cognitive continuum," a...

The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World. By Zack Lynch and Byron Laursen. July 2009. 256p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312378622). 612.8028. Brain-imaging technology has come a long way since the first MRI...

The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High. By Arianne Cohen. June 2009. 256p. illus. Bloomsbury, $20 (9781596913080). 612.6. Cohen, 6'3", explains that this is the book she wished for as an exceedingly tall child. Reaching...

Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France. By Michael Steinberger. July 2009.288p. Bloomsbury, $25 (9781596913530). 641.01. France once embodied the crowning glory of culinary art, but the most serious gastronomes...

Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen. By Jason Sheehan. July 2009. 336p. Farrar, $25 (9780374289218). 641.5. As readers and diners have known ever since Anthony Bourdain's revelations, restaurant...

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects. By Karen Solomon. June 2009. 160p. illus. Ten Speed, paper, $24.95 (9781580089586). 641.5. Consider this kitchen do-it-yourself manual as a great antidote for our...

Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More. By Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. June 2009. 176p. illus. Ten Speed, $22 (9781580089760). 641.8. Nothing evokes nostalgia like hot, bubbling fruit...

The Sauce Book: 300 World Sauces Made Simple.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Sauce Book: 300 World Sauces Made Simple. By Paul Gayler. 2009. 224p. illus. Kyle, $29.95 (9781904920847). 641.8. Gayler starts off his book by introducing the idea that sauces exist to "add flavor, color, texture, and moisture...

The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. By Jackie Battenfield. June 2009. 320p. illus. Da Capo, paper, $16.95 (9780306816529). 702.3. A readable, realistic, and practical field guide to professional success...

Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo. By Werner Herzog. July 2009. 320p. Ecco, $24.99 (9780061575532). 791.43. Considered one of the finest filmmakers in the world, Herzog is certainly among the...

Dames, Dolls & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Dames, Dolls & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire. By Jim Silke. June 2009. 112p. illus. Dark Horse, paper, $24.95 (9781595822727). 741.6. Like day by night, the pinup's heyday was followed by pulp paperback covers. The cute...

Eve Arnold's People.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Eve Arnold's People. Ed. by Brigitte Lardinois. 2009. 176p. illus. Thames & Hudson, $40 (9780500543719). 779.2092. One of the first women in the photojournalists' collective Magnum, Arnold was in her late thirties when she...

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. By Elijah Wald. June 2009. 352p. illus. Oxford, $24.95 (9780195341546). 781.640973. Wald contends that the Beatles, when they became a...

The Rough Guide to Anime.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Rough Guide to Anime. By Simon Richmond. June 2009. 292p. illus. Rough Guides, paper, $18.99 (9781858282053). 791.43. Richmond on Japanese animation will be useful to both new fans and regular viewers, despite a few flaws. The...

Nicky Epstein Knitting in Tuscany: Fabulous Design, Luscious Yarns, Shopping Secrets, Food & Wine, Travel Notes.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Nicky Epstein Knitting in Tuscany: Fabulous Design, Luscious Yarns, Shopping Secrets, Food & Wine, Travel Notes. By Nicky Epstein. July 2009. 112p. illus. Sterling/Nicky Epstein, $19.95 (9781933027753). 746.43. [ILLUSTRATION...

The Alchemy of Color Knitting: Choosing Harmonious Colors.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Alchemy of Color Knitting: Choosing Harmonious Colors. By Gina Wilde. July 2009. 144p. illus. Crown/Potter Craft, paper, $24.95 (9780307393555). 746.43. Wilde focuses on different color combinations in knitting. Not only does...

Contemporary Loom Beading: A New Look at a Traditional Stitch.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Contemporary Loom Beading: A New Look at a Traditional Stitch. By Sharon Bateman. 2009. 144p. illus. Lark, $24.95 (9781600592737). 745.58. Emulating Native American beadwork is a craft not intended for the impatient or...

The Lover's Guide to Trapping.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Lover's Guide to Trapping. By Wyatt Prunty. June 2009. 72p. Johns Hopkins, $23.95 (9780801892790). 811. The same lover who counsels about setting and tending traps for fur and meat animals at this collection's end opens it...

The Mind-Body Problem.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Mind-Body Problem. By Katha Pollitt. June 2009. 112p. Random, $22 (9781400063338). 811. Both essays and poems are arresting distillations of thoughts and feelings. So it makes sense that Pollitt, best known as an essayist in...

A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest. By Hobson Woodward. July 2009. 288p.Viking, $25.95 (9780670020966). 910.9163. Bardolaters know that The Tempest alludes to...

Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson. By Peter C. Mancall. June 2009.288p. Basic, $26.95 (9780465005116). 910.92. Once Europeans realized that Columbus had stumbled onto a "New World" rather than the coast of Asia,...

Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language. By Katherine Russell Rich. July 2009. 384p. Houghton, $26 (9780618155453). 954.05. On one level, Rich's capacious memoir of the time she spent in India learning the Hindi...

Germany, 1945: From War to Peace.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Germany, 1945: From War to Peace. By Richard Bessel. July 2009.448p. illus. Harper, $28.99 (9780060540364). 943.0864. Questioning how defeat in World War II transformed Germany from a militaristic to a pacific country, Bessel...

The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon's Greatest Army.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon's Greatest Army. By Stephan Talty. June 2009. 336p. Crown, $25.95 (9780307394040). 940.2. Talty is very informative, even witty, on a grim topic: how typhus...

The Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War. By James Hider. July 2009. 352p. St. Martin's/Griffin, paper, $14.95 (9780312565855). 956.05. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A reporter covering the...

In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan. By Seth G. Jones. July 2009.432p. illus. Norton, $27.95 (9780393068986). 958.104. Jones traces the steady resurgence of the Taliban and its allies, facilitated by U.S....

Lake with No Name.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Lake with No Name. By Diane Wet Liang. June 2009. 288p. Simon & Schuster, paper, $14 (9781439136867). 951.05. The author of the Mei Wang mystery series (The Eye of Jade, 2008) presents an evocative memoir about her youth in China....

Mile-High Fever: Silver Mines, Boom Towns and High Living on the Comstock Lode.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Mile-High Fever: Silver Mines, Boom Towns and High Living on the Comstock Lode. By Dennis Drabelle. July 2009. 288p. St. Martin's, $25.95 (9780312379476). 979.3. A decade after the California gold rush began, the discovery of a...

No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864. By Richard Slotkin. July 2009.432p. Random, $28 (9781400066759). 973.7. By the summer of 1864, Union and Confederate forces faced each other across a series of massive breastworks and...

"What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country. By Kevin Mattson. July 2009. 272p. Bloomsbury, $25 (9781596915213). 973.926092. In 1979, the...

American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WWII Marine Raiders, and America's First Special Forces Mission.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WWII Marine Raiders, and America's First Special Forces Mission. By John Wukovits. June 2009. 336p. NAL/Caliber, $25.95 (9780451226921). 940.54. The worthy chronicler of the Battle of Tarawa in...

The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter. By Jason Kersten. June 2009. 304p. Gotham, $26 (9781592404469). 364.1. No sooner was money created than people began dreaming of ways to counterfeit it, including the...

The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon. By John Ferling. June 2009.464p. Bloomsbury, $26 (9781596914650). 973.4. American Revolution historian Ferling doubts that Washington was the...

Black Tooth Grin: The High Life, Good Times, and Tragic End of "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Black Tooth Grin: The High Life, Good Times, and Tragic End of "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. By Zac Crain. June 2009. 240p. illus. Da Capo, paper, $15.95 (9780306815249). 787.87. "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott was a convivial fellow who got...

The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped. By Paul Strathern. Sept. 2009.480p. illus. Bantam, $30 (9780553807523). 945. [ILLUSTRATION...

The Bolter.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Bolter. By Frances Osborne. June 2009. 320p. illus. Knopf, $30 (9780307270146). 942.08. The story of Idina Sackville's life reads like an elaborately embroidered work of fiction. What makes this biography so compulsively...

Calvin.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Calvin. By Bruce Gordon. July 2009. 432p. Yale, $35 (9780300120769). 284. Deviser of the doctrine of predestination, Calvin vaulted to intellectual prominence in the Protestant Reformation through his rigorous scriptural exegesis....

Camus: A Romance.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Camus: A Romance. By Elizabeth Hawes. July 2009. 304p. illus. Grove, $25 (9780802118899). 848.91. Romance is not commonly used to describe the relationship between a biographer and her subject, but certainly passion is essential to...

Duchess of Death: The Unauthorized Biography of Agatha Christie.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Duchess of Death: The Unauthorized Biography of Agatha Christie. By Richard Hack. July 2009. 308p. Phoenix, $25.95 (9781597776202). 823. The central mystery of Agatha Christie's life was her disappearance in 1926. Christie, already...

Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists. By Dyana Z. Furmansky. July 2009. 376p. Univ. of Georgia, $28.95 (9780820333410). 333.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before Al Gore's...

Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... * Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant. By Carol Berkin. Sept. 2009. 384p. illus. Knopf, $27.95 (9781400044467). 973.7. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Professor...