Book Talk

The Bright Side

Well, the economy is not great, but remember this time last year?  Jim Cramer does, and his newest book is Getting Back to Even: Your Personal Recovery Plan. His first recommendation?… get over it. Mourning the loss of what you had won’t help you in the future. He gives twelve stocks and some regional banks poised to lead the way to an improved portfolio.

In 1910, winds as strong as hurricane force fanned a fire which raced across drought stricken Washington, Idaho and Montana.  Forest rangers assembled a force of ten thousand men to fight the blaze. The heroic action of these men turned public opinion in favor of national park lands and saved for us what we have today. The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, shows the events that ultimately preserved our wilderness areas.

Politics claims many victims, and one of the most notable is Max Cleland of Georgia.  A triple amputee from his service in Vietnam he found an outlet for his energies in the Georgia State Senate. From there he moved on to secretary of state and then to U.S. Senator. During his re-election campaign he was branded as unpatriotic by his opponent, lost his seat and fell into a depression. Forty years after Vietnam he returned to Walter Reed hospital for treatment.  Heart of a Patriot: how I Found the courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove covers his life affirming journey.

Barbara Ehrenrich has the ability to make us see life from a different perspective. In Bright-Sided: how the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America, she challenges the American proclivity for positive thinking.  She traces this particular strain of Americana to a marginal 19th century healing technique, to its now dominant cultural attitude. A down side to positive thinking? Consider the recent economic situation when decisions were based on the idea that nothing would go wrong and markets wouldn’t go down…

Curator Todd Gustavson of the George Eastman House, has produced  Camera: a History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital.  Illustrated with more that 350 photographs of cameras from the Eastman House collection, this is a must for your photography fan.

Fiction

Vampires! You gotta love ‘em. They are everywhere these days.  In The Midnight Guardian, by Sarah Jane Stratford, the vampires take on Hitler. Aghast at the elimination of so many bloodlines, the London tribunal of vampires decides to send five of its most experienced vampires to Berlin to disrupt the Nazi war machine. Hitler, of course has a special unit of vampire hunters and a vision of a vampire-free Europe. The battle is joined.

Richard Belzer of Law and Order fame, contributes his second mystery, I am not a Psychic.  When new evidence surfaces in an old murder, TV cop Richard Belzer agrees to hear out his conspiracy theorist friend. When the friend is murdered, the Belz, relying on his TV cop, training tracks down the killer.

If you haven’t met detective Sharon McCone, you are in for a treat. In Marcia Muller’s newest, Sharon is a victim of Locked In syndrome after a murderous attack in her office. Almost totally paralyzed but with an active mind, she lies in her hospital bed analyzing the information brought in by her staff and makes connections that endanger her life.

Father Dowling re-appears in Stained Glass by Ralph McInerny. When St. Hilary’s is threatened with closure, Father Dowling tries to muster the support of his parishioners, including the wealthy Deveres. But those closest to the Deveres are turning up dead, leaving father Dowling to expose long hidden family secrets.

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian