Jean Auel Returns with Book 6 of the Earth's Children Series

Mark March 29, 2011, on your calendar in preparation for the release of the sixth and final book of the Earth's Children series, The Land of Painted Caves, In preparation, try the other books in the series about lives of Ayla and Jondular more than 25,000 years ago. If you have never heard of the series, which began back in 1980 with the Clan of the Cave Bear, get ready to have a new favorite series. SH

Book 1. Clan of the Cave Bear





Book 2. Valley of Horses





Book 3. Mammoth Hunters





Book 4. Plains of Passage





Book 5. Shelters of Stone

Audie Awards

The 15th annual Audies Gala for best audiobook recording recently took place at the Museum of the City of New York. Some of the winners are as follows:

2010 Winners

THE MALTESE FALCON - Audiobook Adaptation
Dashiell Hammett, Read by Michael Madsen, Sandra Oh, Edward Herrmann, and a Full Cast
Blackstone Audiobooks

NELSON MANDELA'S FAVORITE AFRICAN FOLKTALES - Audiobook of the Year
Nelson Mandela [Ed.], Read by Gillian Anderson, Benjamin Bratt, LeVar Burton, Ricardo Chavira, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Hayes, Hugh Jackman, Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Debra Messing, Helen Mirren, Parminder Nagra, Sophie Okonedo, CCH Pounder, Alan Rickman, Jurnee Smollett, Charlize Theron, Blair Underwood, Forest Whitaker, Alfre Woodard
Hachette Audio

NURTURESHOCK - Personal Development winner Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman, Read by Po Bronson
Hachette Audio

THE TIME OF MY LIFE - Audiobook of the Year Runner Up
Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi, Read by Patrick Swayze
Simon & Schuster Audioa



THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS - Audio Drama Runner Up
C.S. Lewis, Read by Andy Serkis, Geoffrey Palmer, Eileen Page, Laura Michelle Kelly, and a Full Cast
Focus on the Family


ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED - Biography/Memoir winner
Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold, Read by Barbara Rosenblatt
Oasis Audio/Springwater





RAIN - Business/Educational winnerJeffrey J. Fox, Read by Jeffrey J. Fox
Brilliance Audio


GREAT EXPECTATIONS - Classic winner
Charles Dickens, Read by Charlton Griffin
Audio Connoisseur

THE HELP - Distinguished achievement in production winner
Kathryn Stockett, Read by Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, Jenna Lamia, Cassandra Campbell
Penguin Audio/ Books on Tape




TEARS IN THE DARKNESS - History winner
Elizabeth M. Norman, Michael Norman, Read by Michael Prichard
Tantor Audio


WOLF HALL - Literary fiction winner
Hilary Mantel, Read by Simon Slater
Macmillan Audio/ BBC Audiobooks America

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS - Mystery & Suspense winner
Walter Mosley, Read by Michael Boatman
Audible, Inc.

THE NATIONAL PARKS - Nonfiction winner
Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan,
Read by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan
Books on Tape

LA TRAVERSIA DE ENRIQUE/ ENRIQUE'S JOURNEY - Spanish language winner
Sonia Nazario, Read by Adriana Sananes
Recorded Books/ AudioLibros

DARLING JIM - Thriller/Suspense winner
Christian Moerk, Read by Stephen Hoye, Justine Eyre
Tantor Audio

BLACK MASK AUDIO MAGAZINE, VOL. 1 - Short Stories/Collections winner
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Earl Stanley Gardner, et al., Read by Richard Ferrone, Grover Gardner, Anthony Heald, Malcolm Hillgartner, William Hughes, Lorna Raver, Burt Ross, Rochelle Savitt, Christine Williams, Tom Weiner, Kaitlin Hopkins, George Guidall, Jeff Woodman
Blackstone Audiobooks

BELLWETHER - Science Fiction/Fantasy winner
Connie Willis, Read by Kate Reading
Blackstone Audiobooks

-DB

New Books for July

What's new for July?

Isaacs, Susan

As Husbands Go

A rare mix of wit, social satire, and suspense, along with characters who leap from the page to speak directly to the reader--a moving story about a love that just won't give up.

Johansen, Iris and Roy

The Shadow Zone

A heart-pounding thriller involving the search for a mysterious Atlantean city.

Reich, Christopher

Rules of Betrayal

The new novel in the series featuring Dr. Jonathan Ransom and his undercover-agent wife Emma, a dangerous woman with a mysterious past who has gone rogue in the high-stakes, serpentine world of international spies

Weiner, Jennifer

Fly Away Home

An unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.

maf

The Book-lover's Lament

If you're reading this blog, there's a good chance you have a special relationship with books. By "books" I mean those rectangular things with paper pages all bound together with some sort of cover. You remember. Those who love books share a common affliction: the inability to "weed" your collection. Read this short column in Chronicle of Higher Education--not for practical tips to make the job any easier, but for some reassurance that you are not alone. And, even if you are not in the habit of reading the comments attached to blog entries, read these.
--RL

New History Books 2010

The following are the most popular history books published in 2010. Popularity is based upon library circulation.

1 The Legacy of the Second World War
by John Lukacs.

In this work, which offers both an accessible primer for students and challenging new theses for scholars, Lukacs addresses the perplexing and often overlooked questions about World War II, revealing the ways in which the war and its legacy still touch lives today.



2 Anything Goes: a biography of the roaring twenties
by Lucy Moore.

Moore interweaves stories of the compelling people and events that characterized the 1920s to produce a gripping portrait of the Jazz Age. She reveals that the Roaring Twenties were an epoch of passion and change--an age, she observes, not unlike our own.



3 Americans in Paris: life and death under Nazi occupation
by Charles Glass.

Before the Second World War began, approximately thirty thousand Americans lived in Paris, and when war broke out in 1939 almost five thousand remained. As citizens of a neutral nation, the Americans in Paris believed they had little to fear. They were wrong.



4 The Harvard Psychedelic Club: how Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil killed the fifties and ushered in a new age for America
by Don Lattin.

Lattin describes one of the engines that drove the revolution of the 1960s. His style is narrative nonfiction, using spoken and written interviews to construct dialogue as it might have occurred, in most cases reviewed for accuracy by at least one of the actual participants in a conversation. Chapters describe their first encounter with psychedelic drugs, the research they began, infighting and exposure, expulsion, San Francisco, pilgrimage and exile, the impact on the lives of the four, and their impact on the world.



5 Citizens of London: the Americans who stood with Britain in its darkest, finest hour
by Lynne Olson.

Here is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and a reluctant American public to support the British at a critical time.



6 The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: how the daughters of Genghis Khan rescued his empire
by Jack Weatherford.

After Genghis Khan's death in 1227, conflicts erupted between his daughters and his daughters-in-law; what began as a war between powerful women soon became a war against women in power as brother turned against sister, son against mother. At the end of this epic struggle, the dynasty of the Mongol queens had seemingly been extinguished forever, as even their names were erased from the historical record.

TB

Overdrive has an app for that

Do you have an iPhone, iTouch, or an iPad and love listening to audiobooks? You may have already become familiar with Overdrive, which is the online digital audiobook and ebook service made available through the Minuteman Library Network, but did you know that they now have an app for your Apple techno-gadget? In order to use it, you visit our Overdrive catalog on the web at http://digital.minlib.net/ where you check out your audiobook (mp3 only at this point) and then seamlessly download it to your device via the app. I've tried it twice already and it's worked perfectly. Enjoy!

MW

What do I read next? Try Overbooked!

OVERBOOKED: A RESOURCE FOR READERS

With this blog and our Staff Picks blog, the WFL staff tries to bring titles that may of interest to readers in the community. There are many websites that are available to check for titles of interest including LibraryThing, Genrefluent, Bookpage, GoodReads, Shelfari, etc.

Today I would like to introduce you to Overbooked, created by Ann Chambers Theis in 1994. It was the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores-Greenwood Publishing Award for excellence in reviewing books. The site claims to provide "annotated lists of nonfiction, fiction and mystery books which received starred reviews [from library journals Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews all in one place], themed booklists, featured title lists, and hot lists of US fiction [new] releases and notable books." (from website)

So if you are unsure what to read next, try Overbooked to see what may meet your tastes! SH

New Books for June

What's new in fiction and mystery for the month of June? Here are a few titles:

Beattie, Ann

Walks with Men

Coulter, Catherine

Whiplash

Deaver, Jeffery
The Burning Wire

DeMille, Nelson

The Lion

Evanovich, Janet
Sizzling Sixteen

maf