Oak Ridge Public Library

For over 65 years, the Methodist Medical Center has been in the heart of our town. Established by the Army in 1943 to serve the health needs of a burgeoning city, Oak Ridge Hospital was literally saved in 1955 by Rep. Howard Baker, Sr., who convinced Congress to reinstate funding for a new building. Since then, it has grown into one of the area’s best medical facilities. Kay Brookshire and Laura Wallace have written an enjoyable biography of MMC using tons of photos and first person accounts – The Heart of the Community: Methodist Medical Center 1943-2008 (362.110).

Before his recent untimely death, Robert B. Parker completed the 9^th installment of his popular Jesse Stone series. Split Image (M) offers a bonus for fans with the reappearance of Sunny Randall who has come to Paradise to rescue young Cheryl DeMarco from a religious cult. While Sunny and Jesse get reacquainted, he begins an investigation into the murder of a local thug whose body is found in the trunk of a car.

The books behind two current critically acclaimed motion pictures are now available at the library. Push, by Sapphire, follows the story of Precious Jones, a teenage, overweight African-American girl who has known little kindness in her short life. Now pregnant again by her father, Precious briefly finds joy at her new school. Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man portrays homosexual George Falconer who is left adrift in a world that barely acknowledges his grief when his partner dies unexpectedly.

In 1905, an unknown clerk in the Swiss Patent Office rocked the scientific world with a paper he wrote introducing his theory of relativity. Now physicists Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw have teamed up to walk us through the intricacies of Albert Einstein’s theory and the wonders it has revealed in Why Does e=mc2 (and Why We Should Care?) (530.110).

Although he has been writing since the late 70s, Swedish novelist and playwright Henning Mankell has become more widely known through the television adaptations of his Kurt Wallander mysteries. The Man from Beijing is his latest book – a stand along novel of revenge which begins with a horrific massacre in the tiny village of Hesjovallen. The tragedy intrigues Judge Birgitta Roslin, whose mother’s foster parents are among the victims. A similar crime in Nevada involving distant relations of the murdered townspeople sets Birgitta on a complex path – across the world to China and into America’s past.

Whether Jasper Fforde is stretching literary genres with the Thursday Next novels or punning his way through the Nursery Crime Division books, he enjoys writing stories that take place well outside the box. He begins a delightful new series with Shades of Grey, set in a future time when a person’s place in society is determined by his or her perception of particular colors. Reds are considered hopelessly lower class, although Eddie Russett hopes to elevate his status through his marriage to Constance Oxblood. Things go badly awry, though, when Eddie and his father move to East Carmine – a town seething with political unrest among the working class called the Greys.

Other new titles:

Fiction –

The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk;

Wild Child…and Other Stories, by T. C. Boyle;

Winter Garden, by Kristin Hannah;

A Night too Dark (M), by Dana Stabenow.

Non-fiction –

Lunch in Paris: a Love Story with Recipes (944.361), by Elizabeth Bard;

Open: an Autobiography (796.342), by Andre Agassi;

The Best of America’s Test Kitchen 2010 (641.597).

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March 5, 2010

The day after she is baptized at the Baptist church in Haverill, Vermont, Alice Haywood is strangled to death by her husband George, who then commits suicide. The minister, Stephen Drew, is so shocked by the act that he leaves town to try to make sense out of it. Through Stephen, the deputy state attorney in charge of the case, a young writer who lost her parents in the same tragic manner, and the Hayward’s 15-year-old daughter, novelist Chris Bohjalian reveals the Secrets of Eden, where nothing is as straightforward as it first appears.

Between 1892 and 1924, over 12 million immigrants passed through the portals at Ellis Island to begin a new life in America. Perhaps one of them was your ancestor. Vincent Cannato has written a fascinating and thought-provoking book on this small tract of land in the mouth of Hudson Bay, where pirates were once hung, in American Passage: the History of Ellis Island (325.730).

After 48 years of marriage, 75-year-old Betty Weissman finds herself divorced and unceremoniously booted out of her 5^th Avenue apartment when her 78-year-old husband, Joseph, falls in love with a younger woman. Thanks to the generosity of her Cousin Lou, Betty and her daughter Miranda, a literary agent fallen on hard times, have a home of sorts to go to – a shabby beachside cottage in Connecticut, where they are joined by elder daughter and sister Annie – a library director with a sound head on her shoulders. Turning Sense and Sensibility into a charming modern tale of love lost and found, Cathleen Schine presents The Three Weissmans of Westport.

At 302 pounds, Mary Gooch’s life consists of little more than multiple journeys to and from the refrigerator. Two miscarriages and her beloved father’s death have left her emotionally crippled despite the long-suffering love of her husband Jimmy. On the eve of their 25^th anniversary, Jimmy disappears. Slowly realizing that he is really gone and finally shaken out of her lethargy, Mary springs into action and surprises even herself. A Wife’s Tale is the latest by Lori Lansens.

Mark Bittman’s directions for preparing the dishes in his latest cookbook are so brief and easy, you’ll be eager to get into the kitchen to try them. The bonus is you can prepare them in less than 20 minutes using fresh ingredients found each season of the year. It is Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express: 404 Inspired Seasonal Dishes You can Make in 20 Minutes of Less (641.555).

The Freedom of Information Act as well as the Sunshine law gives Americans the right to expect a level of transparency in our government. Attorney Jacqueline Klosek claims, however, that since 9/11 the federal government has set up more and more exemptions to the FOIA, making it increasingly harder to get information. Klosek has written a highly useful guide “to using and defending” the FOIA and The Right to Know (342.085).

New DVD titles:

Feature –

The Hurt Locker, with Jeremy Renner, Guy Pearce, and Ralph Fiennes;

My Sister’s Keeper, starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin;

The Time Traveler’s Wife, featuring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams.

Information/Instruction –

Yoga for Weight Loss, with instructor Ashley Turner;

Pilates Weight Loss for Beginners, with instructor Brooke Siler;

Brain Fitness 2: Sight and Sound.

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February 26, 2010

Although he was largely overshadowed by his controversial older brother Robert, Frank Oppenheimer followed his footsteps for a time. He, too, became a physicist, worked on the Manhattan Project, and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Frank, however, took his family to Colorado, where he discovered his love and gift for teaching. In 1967, he moved to San Francisco where he founded a hands-on arts and science learning center called the Exploratorium. Science writer K. C. Cole deftly tells his life story in Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World he Made Up (921.000).

At 72, Jackie Collins hasn’t lost her touch as she proves in her latest potboiler Poor Little Bitch Girl. Actress Gemma Summers has been murdered and her actor husband Ralph Maestro is the prime suspect. The case brings together a group of glamorous people who knew each other in high school. Annabelle Maestro takes a break from her escort service in New York to attend her mother’s funeral and her father’s trial. Lawyer Denver Jones, Annabelle’s childhood friend, takes over Ralph’s legal defense while succumbing to his charms. Even their friend Bobby Santangelo Stanislopolous flies in to lend his support and brings with him some deadly secrets from the past.

During the 1970s, Josh Greenfeld wrote a trio of books about his severely autistic son Noah chronicling the family’s struggles to deal with this then little-known condition. Not surprisingly, Noah had a profound impact on his brother, Karl, whose childhood was all but forfeit as the family focused on his brother’s needs. All grown up now and an author in his own right, Karl Taro Greenfeld gives us a different view of Noah’s story in Boy Alone: a Brother’s Memoir (616.858).

From the New Deal to Vietnam, journalist I. F. Stone continued to question the norm and make public disquieting truths about our leaders and their policies. Ironically, notes D. D. Guttenplan, the man who so enjoyed tarnishing public icons had become one himself by the time of his death in 1989. Guttenplan traces that life and those times in his biography of Stone – American Radical (070.920).

Like the time traveling historians in her novels, Connie Willis takes us to 2060 Oxford where three students are preparing to visit various locations throughout Britain during the early 1940s. As they reach their destinations – Polly becomes a shop girl in London while Merope goes to a children’s’ evacuation center in the country and Michael ends up at Dunkirk – the transporting equipment at Oxford develops several glitches leaving them stranded during the Blitz. Will they be forced to break the cardinal rule to never interfere in the past? The exciting story in Blackout will continue in November when Willis will publish its sequel.

Believe it or not, even librarians get to star in their own fiction series. One of them, Israel Armstrong, drives a bookmobile in Northern Ireland, bringing culture to the quirky inhabitants of Tumdrum – and occasionally solving a mystery or two. The Bad Book Affair is actually Israel’s fourth escapade, in which the English Jewish vegetarian librarian comes under suspicion when he loans Philip Roth’s American Pastoral to 14-year-old Lyndsay Morris - who promptly disappears. C. J. Sansom is the author.

Other new titles:

Fiction –

Where the God of Love Hangs Out (SS), by Amy Bloom;

A Matter of Class, by Mary Balogh;

The Queen’s Governess, by Karen Harper;

Iron River: a Charlie Hood novel, by T. Jefferson Parker.

Non-fiction –

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (509.410), by Richard Holmes;

How to Sew on a Button, and Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew (640.000), by Erin Bried.

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February 19, 2010

Three new books bring further insights into the development of the atomic bomb and its far-reaching ramifications. In Uranium Wars (621.480), popular science writer Amir D. Aczel chronicles the pre-war rivalry among the international scientific community to control nuclear power. Charles Pellegrino gives us an uncomfortable ringside seat to the destruction the bomb touched off in Last Train from Hiroshima: the Survivors Look Back (940.542). Finally, the always provocative Garry Wills believes the bomb changed the face of American politics – an idea he enlarges on in Bomb Power: the Modern Presidency and the National Security State (355.033).

James Patterson has added two more titles to his burgeoning body of work. Witch & Wizard, written with Gabrielle Charbonnet, begins a new series featuring siblings Whit and Wisty Allgood, two seemingly normal kids who wake up one morning under arrest and facing execution for practicing witchcraft and sorcery. Worst Case is the third outing for police detective Michael Bennett. The father of 10 squares off with a new serial killer who is targeting the children of New York’s wealthiest families. Michael Ledwidge co-authored.

It seems impossible that the 54-year-old frumpy concierge of a Paris apartment building and the 12-year-old daughter of one of the upscale tenants would have anything in common, but Renee Michel and Paloma Josse do. Quite a lot, actually. Both are highly intelligent, and both are adept at appearing to be what they are not. Renee hides her taste for philosophy and fine food behind a blaring TV and the smell of cooked cabbage. Paloma covers her disdain for the shallow people around her by behaving like a superficial adolescent while she secretly plans her suicide. The arrival of a new tenant brings some unexpected changes for both Renee and Paloma in Muriel Barbery’s intriguing The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a recent best seller in France.

Although Windows 7 seems to be pretty well received so far, the groundswell against Windows Vista may have started you thinking about biting into a Macintosh. David Pogue helps you take the plunge in Switching to the Mac: the Missing Manual (004.160). In it he clearly shows you how to transfer your stuff from your old PC as well as set up your new software, and he provides a good introduction to Snow Leopard, the Mac’s popular operating system.

In January 2007, then President George W. Bush announced that the U.S. would begin a surge in Iraq to put a stop to anti-American activity in Baghdad and other locations. The 2-16, a combat unit out of Ft. Riley, Kansas, was eager to go – to be the men who turned the tide of this war. Pulitizer Prize winning journalist David Finkle of the Washington Post went with them and recorded their experiences over the next year against snipers, mortars, and IEDs. The Good Soldiers (956.704) is their unforgettable story.

Giving his Inspector John Rebus a well-deserved break, Ian Rankin offers a standalone novel about three upper class Scotsmen with too much time and money on their hands. Having sold his partnership in an up-and-coming software company, Mike Mackenzie needs a mission. His pal, art expert Robert Gissing, supplies one – the “liberation” of fine artwork kept hidden away by corporate types in boardrooms and warehouses. Their friend, banker Allan Cruickshank, joins them – as well as some art forgers, a crime boss, and a member of the Hell’s Angels. Their plan falls to pieces in Doors Open.

Other new titles:

Fiction –

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, by Lauren Willig;

The Prodigal Wife, by Marcia Willett;

Kisser: a Stone Barrington Novel, by Stuart Woods;

My Father’s Tears, and Other Stories (SS), by John Updike.

Non-fiction –

Drive: the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (153.153), by Daniel H. Pink;

The Indifferent Stars Above: the Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (978.020), by Daniel James Brown.

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