Saturday, May 26, 2012

New This Week...and Last




Canada by Richard Ford (Ecco)
After his parents are arrested and imprisoned for robbing a bank, fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons is taken in by Arthur Remlinger who, unbeknownst to Dell, is hiding a dark and violent nature that interferes with Dell's quest to find grace and peace on the prairie of Saskatchewan.



Lower River by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin)
Idealizing the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, Ellis Hock is abruptly divorced by his wife and decides to return to Africa only to find the region devastatingly transformed by poverty and apathy. 



Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell (William Morrow)
Archeologist Lina Taylor teams up with former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Hunter Johnson to track down four ancient Mayan artifacts that have disappeared.     



Wife-22 by Melanie Gideon (Ballantine)
Baring her soul in an anonymous survey for a marital happiness study, Alice catalogues her stale marriage, unsatisfying job and unfavorable prospects and begins to question virtually every aspect of her life. 



The Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson (Bloomsbury)
 In 1923, Eva English and her devout sister Lizzie embark on a journey to be missionaries in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, while in modern-day London, a young woman's act of kindness to a Yemeni refugee results in an unexpected journey.    



Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley (Harper)
Douglas Brinkley presents the definitive, revealing biography of an American legend: renowned news anchor Walter Cronkite.   


The Thief by Clive Cussler (Putnam)
On the ocean liner Mauretania , two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency's intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell. Unfortunately, they are not so lucky the second time. The thugs attack again-and this time one of the scientists dies. What are they holding that is so precious? Only something that will revolutionize business and popular culture-and perhaps something more. For war clouds are looming, and a ruthless espionage agent has spotted a priceless opportunity to give the Germans an edge. It is up to Isaac Bell to figure out who he is, what he is up to, and stop him. But he may already be too late . . . and the future of the world may just hang in the balance.



Blaze of Glory by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine)
A fictional account of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, told from the perspectives of participants on both sides, recreates the April 1862 surprise attack by Confederate forces on the Union Army at Shiloh.    

1 comment:

Danmark said...

Wife 22 is a fresh observation of married life and the pitfalls that can become it. Alice and her husband William are stuck in a rut. They've been married 20+ years and 2 kids, they don't really communicate other than what is needed to get through their daily routine. Alice struggles to find happiness in her marriage and her daily life. She teaches drama at a local elementary school and finds that there is more drama off the stage with the parents then on the stage with the kids.

One day Alice gets a email asking her to be in a survey about marriage. She thinks, "what the heck?" and fills out the initial acceptance survey. What happens is that the questions are pointed and cause Alice to think back to the the courtship between her and William. What it took for them to get to where they currently are in life. Alice is so focused on the fact that the current state of their marriage is William's fault that when people point out otherwise, she's quick to shut them out.