Bleeding Kansas
by Sara Paretsky
Published 2008 by Putnam Publishing Group

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780399154058

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

The "New York Times" bestselling authors most remarkable novel yet--a story of two families, linked by their Midwestern pioneer pasts, and the dark family secrets that threaten to tear them apart.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 10/15/2007

Bestseller Paretsky, who has tackled weighty issues in her V.I. Warshawski detective series (e.g., the Holocaust in Total Recall), weaves a gripping contemporary novel around three farm families-the Grelliers, Fremantles and Schapens-that can trace their Kaw Valley, Kans., roots back to the 1850s, a time of violent clashes between antislavery and proslavery forces in "Bleeding Kansas." Their shared history is no buffer against the storm of changes that begin with the arrival of Gina Haring, a lesbian Wiccan. Chip Grellier, after being expelled from high school, enlists in the army and is killed in Iraq with devastating effects on his family. The Schapens' fundamentalist doctrines come to the fore when they discover "a perfect red heifer" in their dairy herd that may be a path to riches as well as to the second coming. Meanwhile, Gina stirs prejudices and passions to a fever pitch. Paretsky taps a different vein and strikes gold in this timely tale of fear and conflict in heartland America. Author tour.(Jan.)

Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes for Everyone from the World's Healthiest Cuisine
by Martha Rose Shulman
Published 2007 by Rodale Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781594862342

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

Intensely flavorful and inherently healthy, Mediterranean food is one of the world's most appealing cuisines. Mediterranean cooks know how to make eating a pleasure. They do it simply--with olive oil and garlic; with herbs and spices; with tomatoes and eggplants, peppers and squash, figs and peaches, and other seasonal produce. And of course there is crusty bread and local cheese, the freshest yogurt and endless wine. In this authoritative and anecdotal cookbook, award-winning author Martha Rose Shulman captures the vibrant flavors of the Mediterranean region in more than 500 delicious vegetarian dishes that will appeal to everyone. The book represents years of meticulous research gleaned from Shulman's travels through France, Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, North Africa, and the Middle East. She presents authentic contemporary variations as well. You'll dine with her in Greek olive groves, feast on torecipes handed down from mother to daughter for generations, and she offers her own matoes and fresh sardines in Croatia, savor coffee gelato in the streets of Bologna. At every turn in the road there is a new culinary reward. Whether you are a vegetarian or a dedicated meat eater, Shulman's recipes are substantial enough to satisfy any appetite. Included are such tempting creations as Majorcan Bread and Vegetable Soup, Provencal Chick Pea Salad, Pasta with Ligurian Artichoke Sauce, Greek Cauliflower Gratin with Feta and Olives, Balkan-Style Moussaka, North African Carrot "Compote," and Sweet Dessert Couscous with Citrus and Pomegranate. There is also an entire chapter devoted to the renowned "little foods" of the Mediterranean: tapas from Spain, antipasti and merende fromItaly; meze from the eastern and southern Mediterranean, and more. In addition, the book features a glossary of useful cookware and indispensable pantry staples and the best online sources for hard-to-find ingredients. As Martha Rose Shulman herself says, "Mediterranean food enthralls me." Readers of this classic will be enthralled as well.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
Published 2007 by Farrar Straus Giroux

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780374105235

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

Unforgettable testimony that Africa's children . . . have eyes to see and voices to tell what has happened. And what voices! . . . No outsider could have written this book, and it's hard to imagine that many insiders could do so with such acute vision, stark language, and tenderness. It is a heart-rending achievement. -Melissa Fay Greene, "Elle."

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/18/2006

This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah's harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces. Beah then finds himself in the army-in a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter that lasts until he is 15, when he's brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and partnering NGOs. The process marks out Beah as a gifted spokesman for the center's work after his "repatriation" to civilian life in the capital, where he lives with his family and a distant uncle. When the war finally engulfs the capital, it sends 17-year-old Beah fleeing again, this time to the U.S., where he now lives. (Beah graduated from Oberlin College in 2004.) Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice, this memoir seems destined to become a classic firsthand account of war and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide.(Feb.)

04/01/2007 REVIEW: School Library Journal

Adult/High School- This gripping story by a children's-rights advocate recounts his experiences as a boy growing up in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, during one of the most brutal and violent civil wars in recent history. Beah, a boy equally thrilled by causing mischief as by memorizing passages from Shakespeare and dance moves from hip-hop videos, was a typical precocious 12-year-old. But rebel forces destroyed his childhood innocence when they hit his village, driving him to leave his home and travel the arid deserts and jungles of Africa. After several months of struggle, he was recruited by the national army, made a full soldier and learned to shoot an AK-47, and hated everyone who came up against the rebels. The first two thirds of his memoir are frightening: how easy it is for a normal boy to transform into someone as addicted to killing as he is to the cocaine that the army makes readily available. But an abrupt change occurred a few years later when agents from the United Nations pulled him out of the army and placed him in a rehabilitation center. Anger and hate slowly faded away, and readers see the first glimmers of Beah's work as an advocate. Told in a conversational, accessible style, this powerful record of war ends as a beacon to all teens experiencing violence around them by showing them that there are other ways to survive than by adding to the chaos.-Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA

Chartres: Sacred Geometry, Sacred Space
by Gordon Strachan
Published 2003 by Floris Books

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780863153914

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

In this ground-breaking new work, Gordon Strachan explores the magnificent structure of Chartres Cathedral and its influences on the medieval master builders. Using Chartres as a starting point, Dr. Strachan shows how the origins of the Gothic style--the pointed arch--may lie in Islamic architecture. He goes on to a fascinating and detailed consideration of how a particular architectural space affects us, and how sacred geometry creates sacred space.