Bones: An Alex Delaware Novel

This is the latest in the bestselling Alex Delaware series written by Jonathan Kellerman. Psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware and LAPD Lt. Milo Sturgis team up again to solve a string of murders. When a young woman’s body is discovered, minus one hand, out in the open at an endangered marshland, detectives quickly investigate and unearth bodies of other young women similarly mutilated. Is this the work of a serial killer? Or is it a ruse to deter the investigators from uncovering a more heinous crime. Join the two men as they unravel the knots in this mystery, relying on Milo’s perseverance and Alex’s skills in psychological analysis.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Share the experiences of breast cancer patients and survivors by reading these books.

Cancer Is a Bitch: (Or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis)
Written by Gail Konop Baker, who is a forty-six-year-old mother of three, doctor's wife, runner, and writer. She describes her fight against breast cancer, relating how she spent a year in treatment in her struggle to get back to the life she loved.

Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment: Medical Specialists and Cancer Survivors Tell You What You Need to Know
Edited by Kenneth D. Miller, this is an authoritative resource for women everywhere. After a lengthy description of breast cancer and its treatments, the remainder of the book deals with the personal experiences of breast cancer as shared by several women.

Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting
A memoir by Meredith Norton, an African-American woman, married to a Frenchman, whose disease is misdiagnosed in France. Returning to California, she describes her experiences with chemotherapy, double mastectomy and radiation treatments, and her fight against self-pity.

I Am Not My Breast Cancer : Women Talk Openly About Love & Sex, Hair Loss & Weight Gain, Mothers & Daughters, and Being a Woman With Breast Cancer
Ruth Peltason, an editor and breast cancer survivor, founded and hosted the “First Person Plural” Web site project, an online forum for women facing the disease. Their dialogue provides the content for this book, culled from the entries of 800 women across the U.S. and around the world.

Nineteen Minutes

Nineteen Minutes, a novel written by Jodi Picoult, explores the moral issues that emerge after a high school shooting rampage. Set in a small New Hampshire college town, where everyone knows each other since grade school, the story focuses on two students, Josie Cormier and Peter Houghton, who were best friends as children but now move in different social circles. In high school, Josie is part of the popular crowd, but is not certain that this is what she wants in life. Peter, a sensitive boy who has been bullied since his first day of school, is a loner. After an ultimate incident of abuse, Peter runs amok, shooting and killing ten people and wounding many others.

Additional sub-plots allow the reader to examine the other characters, including the mothers of Josie and Peter, a police detective and the defense attorney. These individuals’ personalities are richly detailed; their actions serve as a means of exploring the various ethical dilemmas presented.

The shooting incident itself, and its origins and aftermath, are slowly revealed in alternating chapters, from the different characters’ points of view and various points of time, until all is exposed. It remains for the reader to discover that no community is immune from such horrific events.

Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie

Written by Ole Edvart Rolvaag, originally in Norwegian and later translated into English, this is a story of the early Norwegian settlers and the hardships they discovered crossing the American plains in the 1870s. Tragedy was almost a daily occurrence and hunger a constant companion. Although the men toiled and suffered so that they might bring up their children in the Promised Land, the women sometimes went mad in conditions that they had known only in nightmares.

The conquest of our land was a great American triumph, but it also took its toll in human lives, misery and disaster.

New Biographies

Whether the setting is Hollywood or network television or Broadway, reading the biographies of the stars can be a fascinating experience.

Life with my Sister Madonna, by Christopher Ciccone, is a memoir written by the younger brother and personal assistant of music legend Madonna. He recreates their work and travel experiences throughout her career; it includes the inside scoop about Madonna’s many transformations and ordeals.

Audition: A Memoir, written by Barbara Walters, is a no-holds barred account of Ms. Walters’ remarkable rise through the ranks of television journalism. Her interviews and experiences with many of the world’s most influential people in politics, royalty, show business, and more provide the reader with quite a few “you are there” experiences.

Home: A Memoir of my Early Years, written by Julie Andrews, details the singer/actress’s youth, from childhood to her late twenties during the 1940s to 1960s. As a member of a family act in England’s music hall circuit, Julie’s big voice leads her to fame in London’s theater district and New York’s Broadway, where she meets many theater and music legends along the way.

These and many other biographies are available at the library.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

Ruth Reichl, currently the editor of “Gourmet” magazine, tells of her experiences as the New York Times restaurant critic during the 1990s. Although Ruth’s career in the food industry included stints as chef, restaurant owner, food writer and restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, none of these posts prepared her for such an exalted position as that of the New York Times food critic. Operating in this competitive atmosphere required fortitude, an encyclopedic knowledge of all foods and cuisines, and a sense of the dramatic. In order to accurately assess each restaurant, Reichl developed a variety of characters and dressed them in an assortment of wigs, makeup and clothing. Then each of these personalities anonymously visited the restaurants to evaluate their menus and to see how they behaved toward typical customers. Sensual descriptions of food, hilarious accounts of the New York City restaurant culture, and some of Ruth’s favorite recipes enliven the pages of this book.

This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation

Written by Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and social critic, here is a satirical commentary of the first decade of twenty-first century life in the United States. Ehrenreich mourns the disappearing middle class and the rise of a two-class society, upper and lower. She zeroes in on the enemy, who include the private health insurance industry, the oil companies, the financial industry, medical professionals, big box stores, and more. Politicians and college administrators also feel her barbs.

This is a compilation of 62 previously published essays, for such publications as “The New York Times” and “The Progressive”; each essay being a few pages in length. Ehrenreich also is the author of several other books, including “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” and “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream".