Monday, June 8, 2015

Books In For Review

Check out the new books that have just arrived for review!  Reviews will be posted to our site and blog soon.




Cafe Europa: An Edna Ferber Mystery by Ed Ifkovic In 1914, as rumors of war float across Europe, Edna Ferber travels to Budapest with Winifred Moss, a famous London suffragette, to visit the homeland of her dead father and to see the sights. Author Edna is fascinated by ancient Emperor Franz Joseph and by the faltering Austro-Hungarian Empire, its pomp and circumstance so removed from the daily life of the people she meets. Sitting daily in the Café Europa at her hotel, she listens to unfettered Hearst reporter Harold Gibbon as he predicts the coming war and the end of feudalistic life in Europe while patrons chatter. Then a shocking murder in a midnight garden changes everything. Headstrong Cassandra Blaine is supposed to marry into the Austrian nobility in one of those arranged matches like Consuela Vanderbilt’s still popular with wealthy American parents eager for titles and impoverished European nobility who have them to offer. But Cassandra is murdered, and her former lover, the dashing Hungarian Endre Molnár, is the prime suspect. Taken with the young man and convinced of his innocence, Edna begins investigating with the help of Winifred and two avant-garde Hungarian artists. Meanwhile possible war with Serbia is the topic of the day as Archduke Franz Ferdinand prepares to head to Sarajevo. While the world braces for disaster, Edna uncovers the truth―and it scares her.

Fabulous Me, Piper Lee And The Peanut Butter Itch by Tolya L. Thompson Fabulous Me Piper Lee and the Peanut Butter Itch is the first release featuring Piper Lee in the existing line of Smarties Books. Guided by her inner voice, MeMe, Piper Lee struggles to resist the temptation of eating peanut butter even though she knows she is allergic to peanuts. The itch to taste, and the total body itch that follows, provide an unforgettable lesson on food allergies. Join Piper Lee on her adventures of illnesses seen in the emergency room and discover how to stay healthy, fabulous and ER free. In the special Smarties Page included in the back of each book, get wise to the facts of food allergies and discover how to stay healthy, fabulous and ER free.  

100 Skills You'll Need for the End of the World (as We Know It)by Ana Maria Spagna What skills will you need after a global catastrophe? Whether it’s the end of oil, an environmental disaster, or something entirely unforeseen, Ana Maria Spagna outlines 100 skills you’ll find indispensable for life after the apocalypse. Once the dust has settled, you’ll need to know how to barter, perform basic first aid, preserve food, cut your own hair, clean a chimney, navigate by the stars, stitch a wound, darn socks, and sharpen blades. You’ll also want to build a stable and safe community, so you’ll need to master the arts of conversation, child raising, listening, music making, and storytelling. This fascinating and entertaining book, full of quirky illustrations by artist Brian Cronin, will provoke surprise, debate, and laughter while it provides a road map to greater self-reliance and joy, whatever the future brings.

Losing Me by Sue Margolis Knocking on sixty, Barbara Stirling is too busy to find herself, while caring for her mother, husband, children, and grandchildren. But when she loses her job, everything changes. Exhausted, lonely, and unemployed, Barbara is forced to face her feelings and doubts. Then a troubled, vulnerable little boy walks into her life and changes it forever.

Rupert's Parchment: Story of Magna Carta by Eileen Cameron Celebrating 800 years of liberties enshrined in Magna Carta, Rupert's Parchment gives Rupert, son of a local parchment maker, a ring side seat at the historic sealing of the great document, Magna Carta, at Runnymede meadow in England in the year 1215. This historical fiction picture book tells the exciting story of the fight for the principles of freedom while readers live through this momentous time through the eyes of young Rupert. Included is a section explaining the history of Magna Carta, a glossary and comparison of Magna Carta and the U.S. Bill of Rights.  

Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries: A British Library Crime Classic edited by Martin Edwards Holidays offer us the luxury of getting away from it all. So, in a different way, do detective stories. This collection of vintage mysteries combines both those pleasures. From a golf course at the English seaside to a pension in Paris, and from a Swiss mountain resort to the cliffs of Normandy, this new selection shows the enjoyable and unexpected ways in which crime writers have used summer holidays as a theme. These fourteen stories range widely across the golden age of British crime fiction. Stellar names from the past are well represented – Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton, for instance – with classic stories that have won acclaim over the decades. The collection also uncovers a wide range of hidden gems: Anthony Berkeley – whose brilliance with plot had even Agatha Christie in raptures – is represented by a story so (undeservedly) obscure that even the British Library seems not to own a copy. The stories by Phyllis Bentley and Helen Simpson are almost equally rare, despite the success which both writers achieved, while those by H. C. Bailey, Leo Bruce and the little-known Gerald Findler have seldom been reprinted.

No comments:

Post a Comment