Our Recent Acquisitions

Here's the full list of books we have acquired with patron grant program funds through Senator Betty Little.
Following the list are the first four reviews of the new book. Be the first to read and review one of the new books! Reviews will be published in the library and on this site.

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Nonfiction
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath That Made the American Way of War by Eliot A. Cohen (OUT - call or send email to reserve).
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund (OUT - call or send email to reserve)
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Then Again by Diane Keaton
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever
The Swan: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver
The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and their Quest to Ban the Bomb by PhillipTaubman
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben
Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror
Sweet Judy Blue Eyes by Judy Collins (audiobook)
Blue Nights by Joan Didion (audiobook)
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs
JFK in Ireland by Ryan Tubridy
Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean
The Time of Our Lives by Tom Brokaw
The Fifty Funniest American Writers - an anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion by Andy Borowitz
The Immortal LIfe of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloots
Jacqueline Kennedy : historic conversations on life with John F. Kennedy : interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (includes 8 CDs)
Aftershock - The Next Economy and America's Future by Robert Reich.
Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope (audiobook)

Juvenile and Young Adult
Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson
Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491 by Charles C. Mann
Thoreau at Walden by John Pordellino
Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons (with CD)
Eyewitness Dinosaur
Eyewitness Computer
Eyewitness Endangered Animals
Eyewitness Titanic (with CD)
What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio
Almost Astronauts - 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Stone
The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
The Boy from the Dragon Palace retold by Margaret Read MacDonald

Fiction
Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth: A Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (large print)
A Lonely Death: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (large print)
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear (large print)
The Next Always by Nora Roberts (large print)
Zero Day by David Baldacci
Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James (audiobook)
The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen
Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
44 Charles Street by Danielle Steel (large print)
Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

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Belden Noble Book Reviews

Written by our patrons

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean
For those who remember the days of black and white films, Rin Tin Tin was a star attraction. In fact, he was the only cinema dog at the time, always shown as a hero, saving lives, leaping across canyons, and bringing lovers together. He was the connection between animals and people. This book is about his life and career, and also about the life of the man who found him in pitiable circumstances during World War I and brought hi to America and launched him on a lifetime in the movies. It tells about the film business and of the successive dogs that followed the inevitable death of the first Rin Tin Tin. There is a riveting account of the owner, raised in an orphanage, who lived with him and trained him to obey commands needed to follow a story line.
When the medium acquired sound and color and showed a preference for small dogs, the glory days of this one faded. But no one who sawhim in his best moments can forget the dog called “Rinty” by thousands.

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder

If you can find Rwanda on the map of Africa and remember that there was genocide there in the 1990s, you are close to Burundi, the birthplace of Deogracias, who has left it for the better life he hopes to find in New York.
This is a story of our time.  Deo’s early years as a barefoot boy in a beautiful struggle-filled land tell of his growing up into a person of importance to his people.
As successive chapters show, dated back and forth from 1966 to 1994, he came, with help and his own drive, to become a student at Columbia, taking a degree in medical knowledge that allowed him to establish education in Burundi that centered on Hutus and Tutsis, their standing fully explained here. Read accounts of this in chapters 13 and 14.
I recommend reading the epilogue and the historical notes first; they will focus your attention on what preceded them. The title comes from a poem by Wordsworth, included at the beginning.

Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

If you have ever read about this side of life in India, written by one who has plumbed the depts. Of the social fabric, this is a great introduction. The rivalry from ordinary greed for possession and a simple wish not to be displaced on the other, assumed serious consequences , and reveals feelings the same as our existing in another cultural frame.
The writing is bursting with color observed by a person who sees it daily in a life of action but also in moments of quiet observation. The story, apparently uncomplicated at first, brings out strength and weaknesses in the several persons described in their natural setting. Just before Book One, there is a detailed description of the tower.

Aftershock by Robert Reich

The purpose of this book, stated in the introduction is worth quoting in full: “My intention in the following pages is to identify the central choice we will face in the years ahead and how we should respond.” The author calls the crash of 1929 our most serious economic crisis ever and can clearly relate it to the recent one of 2008. The title, meaning high unemployment and low wages and an increasingly angry middle class, fortells the buildup of another deep depression which might, however, build up a reform.There is a deeply detailed account of the various ills the aughor sees in our governmental organization, with many strong suggestions as to corrections.The excellent jacket blurb is worth reading, along with the early quote form Arthus Schlesinger, a forerunner of the author’s intention.



Updated 01/28/2012