New Books, Films, Databases, and other Resources: January 2013

The entire span of American literature, in all its variety, from the early seventeenth-century to the late 1980s, is vividly recorded in this authoritative book. Professor Conn summarises the distinctive achievement of the novelists, poets, playwrights, and prose writers who together make up the fabric of America's literary heritage. Classics such as Thoreau, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison - all are expertly placed in their literary, historical, and cultural context. The scope of the book is enlarged by helpful chronological tables, an annotated guide to further reading, and above all by abundant illustrations. Its almost 200 half tones and colour plates comprise portraits and photographs of writers, original illustrations from novels, scenes from famous productions of plays, reproductions of manuscripts, paintings, cartoons, and rare printed material - an exceptional range of visual images which enrich and extend the book's discussion.

Randall Collins traces the movement of philosophical thought in ancient Greece, China, Japan, India, the medieval Islamic and Jewish world, medieval Christendom, and modern Europe. What emerges from this history is a social theory of intellectual change, one that avoids both the reduction of ideas to the influences of society at large and the purely contingent local construction of meanings. Instead, Collins focuses on the social locations where sophisticated ideas are formed: the patterns of intellectual networks and their inner divisions and conflicts.

"It isn't the easiest way to commit suicide. Marie Tennent seems simply to have curled into a fetal position in the freezing snow out on Irontongue Hill and remained there until her body was frozen over. There's no one to observe her death but the foxes and the hares. Her body has bruises, though. Her death is tragic. Is it also suspicious?" "Marie's is not the only death the police have to investigate. What about the baby's body that is discovered in the burned-out hulk of a World War II bomber? And the unidentified man who is crushed by a snowplow?" "Snow and ice have left E Division depleted, and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry needs all the help she can get. But her colleague, Detective Constable Ben Cooper, is following a cold trail of his own. In the winter of 1945, a Royal Air Force bomber crashed on the same Irontongue Hill where Marie Tennent's body was found, killing everyone except pilot Danny McTeague, who disappeared with a large sum of money. Now his granddaughter, Alison Morrissey, has arrived from across the Atlantic to clear his name." "As Fry and Cooper pursue their respective cases, they must also struggle to work together. Where there once was attraction, there now is distrust - and perhaps something more. Work comes first. . . but life can intervene in strange ways."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In a "remote region of northern England where a prehistoric ring of stones, the Nine Virgins, harbors a dark legend. With winter looming, a tenth figure soon joins the circle: the body of young cyclist Jenny Weston, whose limbs are carefully arranged in death to parody a woman dancing. Weeks earlier, another woman, Maggie Crew, was attacked nearby, her face savagely cut open. Is there a maniac on the loose, knifing women at random? ... Was there a prior connection between the two women?"

Visiting his mother in Swansea, Evan Evans encounters a young thug who was once imprisoned for murdering Evan's father and who has been accused of another killing, but Evan is surprised by the man's believable claims of innocence.

It is the Spring of 1937, and a British economist is bound for New York on the "Queen Mary" to enlist President Roosevelt's aid for Britain in the event of war with Germany. Lord Edward Corinth has been asked to keep a discreet eye on him, but then a racist American senator is murdered.

She had left him seven months earlier without an explanation. Now, just as Brin Cassidy is preparing for the biggest dinner party of her career, who should show up unannounced on her doorstep but her handsome, estranged husband, Jon Riley. As the former producer of the popular television programRiley in the Morning,Brin had not only worked with the tempermental blue-eyed star, she had also married him. Their tempestuous, passionate affair was the stuff romances were made of....so why did Brin leave him? She knows in her heart that she owes Riley an explanation, but she isn't ready to face him -- or herself. But Riley is a man who knows what he wants, and usually gets it. And tonight, he isn't leaving without a few answers. From dusk until dawn the two will relive their explosive relationship in a night filled with passion and revelation. Only when the final secret is revealed will it be clear whether a future exists for Riley in the morning...

Unable to overcome the bigotry of their own families in spite of the numerous hardships they have shared, Fawn and Dag set out to find alternative solutions to the perilous rift between their races, during which they acquire such motley companions as a pair of novice Lakewaker patrollers, a magically beguiled farmer boy, and a young riverboat captain.

An ivy league murder, a mysterious coded manuscript, and the secrets of a Renaissance prince collide memorably in THE RULE OF FOUR -- a brilliant work of fiction that weaves together suspense and scholarship, high art and unimaginable treachery.....From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified realm of the Ivy League, from a shocking 500 year-old murder scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, THE RULE OF FOUR takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable suspense.

Ellie Haskell and her housekeeper, Mrs Malloy, are mistaken for detectives and hired by Lady Krumley to investigate a series of fatal accidents that she is convinced are tied to a thirty-year-old curse.

The first book in the new Foreigner trilogy from the Hugo Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh, one of the most prolific and acclaimed science fiction writers in the world, now delivers the seventh book in her Foreigner series and the first book in the new Foreigner trilogy-the epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey.

A family drama in space whose protagonists are a man, a woman and their son. For raping her 25 years earlier, Marie Hawkins intends to denounce Austin Bowe, captain of a freight vessel, as trading with smugglers. But her revenge is foiled by her son, Tom, who subsequently leaves her for his father's ship to discover Bowe is not as bad man as his mother made him out. By the author of Hellburner.

Retired cleaning lady Alvirah Meehan sets out to reunite a mother with a daughter who was stolen as a baby eight years earlier. The mother left her pram outside a church and the pram was taken by a church thief to hide his loot.

Old people in retirement homes are dying off at an alarming rate in a murderous scam to make money from their apartments. When photographer Maggie Holloway's stepmother dies, she investigates.

As Carolyn MacKenzie unravels the mystery behind her brother's disappearance ten years ago, she confronts someone close to her that is equally determined to keep his whereabouts secret at any cost.

in a bold new novel, Coben continues to stake out new ground in suspense, unleashing a haunting tale of secrets and betrayal...and of one man’s search for his missing brother that spirals into a breakneck hunt for a killer, a victim, and the truth...

Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, they are about to change again. ....

When a pregnant nanny turns up quite dead, Hitchcock Sewell, the lovable undertaker-detective, suspects foul play and embarks on a quest to find her killer.

The hero is Johnny Porter, an Oxford-educated Canadian Indian who is an accomplished linguist and master of disguise. The CIA sends him to Russia to obtain information on a genetics program. He enrolls as a Korean deckhand on a ship in Japan, crosses Siberia as a truck driver--in which capacity he meets beautiful Dr. Tanya Komarov--picks up the information and in a hail of bullets dashes home across the Bering Straits.

For undercover FBI agent Katie Cavanaugh this was supposed to be a routine job, go in, get the evidence, catch a killer. But from the moment she lays eyes on John Brighton the intense charge in the air between them tells her that the stakes will be higher this time around."

One Man's America is at once a stirring account of a young immigrant becoming an American, a personal history of the major milestones of the late twentieth century, a fascinating insider's view of the most widely read news magazine in the world, and a warm and loving family saga. Here also is the remarkable success story of a boy driven from his native Vienna by the Nazis and returning years later as American

A book about people and how computers are causing us to reevaluate our identities in the age of the Internet.

"Through the virtual reality of computer simulations and role-playing scenarios, Virtual Learning shows you how to radically rethink your company's entire training process. Its proven steps and strategies will demonstrate how you can excite your employees, make them want to learn more about your business, improve your customer service dramatically, and decrease training costs as you increase productivity!" "For well-known educator and author Roger Schank, these methods are more than just theory. Schank packs Virtual Learning with actual case histories and examples, including in-depth coverage of the Business Practices Course he developed for Andersen Consulting. After working with Schank, Arthur Andersen, the world's largest consulting firm and the first to implement virtual learning, reported that dramatic improvements resulted from their training programs and other companies have asked to purchase their training systems."--

echnology-based training (TBT) is the discipline of designing technological systems for support of workers in training, which range from simple audio tapes to highly sophisticated simulations employing virtual reality. Technology-Based Training explores such technologies, posing fundamental questions about their effectiveness and relevance. Authors Ravet and Layte offer their perspectives on implementing TBT, explain TBT's key aspects, and recommend methods in designing one's own TBT products. In addition, the text offers a clear guide to existing computer training media, from computer-based training to the Internet.

The murder of Yvonne Harrison at her home in Lower Swinstead has the Thames Valley CID baffled until Chief Inspector Morse reluctantly agrees to take over the investigation.

It is 1969, and a paranoid president has convulsed America in a vicious war against imaginary internal enemies. As the country slides into fascism, a struggling science-fiction writer named Philip K. Dick is trying to keep from becoming one of that war's casualties. Meanwhile, Dick's best friend, a record executive named Nicholas Brady, is receiving transmissions from a God-like extraterrestrial intelligence, which he dubs Valis, who apparently wants him to overthrow the president.

In Chicago, a series of murders has the hallmark of Aaron Stampler, the altar boy who butchered a bishop and whom lawyer Martin Vail saved from the electric chair. But Stampler is in jail--unless. The nagging thought sends Vail into a panic when his woman becomes a target.

Ten years after the death of Thomas Covenant, his one-time companion, Linden Avery, returns home to discover her child building images of the Land with blocks and is once again summoned to take part in an epic battle against evil.

When a local prosecutor is killed by a sniper while dining at an exclusive Granite Creek, Colorado, restaurant, a nearby witness who claims that the bullet had been intended for him hires Charlie Moon to uncover the truth.

Includes the following: So you want to be a wizard; Deep wizardry; High wizardry; A wizard abroad; The wizard's dilemma.

Entreated by partner Erin D'Angelo to help in the case of a friend, who has been accused of murdering her husband, avid book collector Cliff Janeway investigates and discovers that the victim possessed a valuable collection of books.

In this acclaimed fantasy adventure, a young girl is drawn into the strange, spooky underworld in the basement of her uncle's funeral parlor.

Laura flees her home in California, and in struggling to establish herself in a new life in Boston, she has an angel with frayed wings and no easy answers to help her deal with the details of her childhood and a household of two religions.

A look at Anne Boleyn, the Tudor queen whose love affair with a king cost her her head.

Murder at the Metropolitan Opera House pulls Alexandra Cooper behind the scenes at the Lincoln Center --
and into the cutthroat conglomerate that controls the city's theaters. Joe Berk, the powerful head of the Berk Organization, was the lover of world-class ballerina Natalya Galinova; was he tied to her disappearance and untimely death after a performance at the Met?

Written by the author when she was in the fifth grade, this extraordinary fantasy--inspired by a dream and her complicated feelings about terrorism after September 11th--portrays a world of warfare, deception, bravery, and freedom.

In the Bachelos List, Constane Duncan and her sister, Prudence, covertly publish The Mayfair Lady, a newspaper supporting the women's suffrage movement. When a mysteriously seductive member of Parliament takes an interest in Constance, his opposing views infuriate her - even as she revels in his sensous embrace. Little did Max Ensor know that he'd abandon his political outlook to satisfy his heart's desire - or that Constance would boldly return his passion. .

he Darkwar rages upon Midkemia and Kelewan, bringing bleak days of destruction and despair. To save the future of both worlds, the powerful sorcerer Pug and select members of the secretive Conclave of Shadows must journey deep into the dangerous realm of the bloodthirsty Dasati, there to carry out an audacious mission that has little, if any, chance of succeeding.

Jane Wheel discovers a bizarre collectible in a newly purchased trove of 1950s saloon ephemera, that sparks her curiosity about the saloon owners and prompts her, along with her husband and some friends, to investigate.

Fourteen years after the 1988 SuperHoop, Thursday finds herself entangled in cases involving the murders of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple before receiving a death threat of her own.

In the aftermath of a deadly twister, police chief Charlie Grover suspects that the members of the Pepper family died at the hands of a killer rather than the storm, and investigates with the assistance of weather expert Willa Bellman

Moving their family to a safe and tranquil suburb, Lynn and Barry Schulman are horrified to discover the town's sinister side, which is revealed after an old friend is murdered and an old boyfriend begins to stalk Lynn.

"Spanning the far-distant future and the infinite reaches of space, Cities in Flight brings together the famed 'Okie' novels named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl of science fiction master James Blish. Featuring flying cities roaming the galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life, the four volumes take us from the death of our universe to the birth of the next.

Living a secret double life, lawyer Cal Dexter embarks on a deadly quest for vengeance that threatens global security, prompting CIA agent Kevin McBride to race against the clock to stop him.

A time-travel series featuring a woman doctor from the present who went back to the 1700s to marry a Scottish rebel. She is Claire and he is Jamie, and in this volume they emigrate to America, becoming involved in revolutionary activity against the British.

After the all-powerful wizard Susnam Evyndd is defeated during battle, the world is plunged into darkness. If the spell is not quickly reversed, all plants will die off from lack of sun, until everythingand everyoneis destroyed. Yet Evyndds death sets off his last and greatest spell, transforming his household pets into humans. With Evyndds instructions, the group sets out to return light to the world.

Examines the career of Chicago gangster Al Capone, recounting his actions during the 1920s as well as his boyhood poverty & final years in prison.

By placing politics and material culture at the heart of historical change, Daniel Roche captures the complexity and depth of the Enlightenment. He shows the reader the 18th-century France of the peasant, the merchant, the noble, the King, from Paris to the provinces.

The critically acclaimed, definitive biography of the complex, elusive man credited with saving Spain from both the communists and Hitler as well as orchestrating the Spanish economic miracle of the 1960s.

Filling a remarkable gap, Alan Schom, an acclaimed historian, scholar, and author, offers the most complete picture ever of Napoleon Bonaparte, "the scourge of Europe" and France's greatest hero. Based on more than ten years of exhaustive research, Schom illuminates Napoleon's important economic and social reforms, his reorganization of the French government, and his tempestuous personal life and its effect on his political decisions. Remarkably ambitious and compulsively readable, Napoleon Bonaparte covers every aspect of l'Empereur's life and career, from his childhood on Corsica to his dramatic rise to the throne of France, his campaigns of conquest to his final crushing defeat at Waterloo and death in exile on St. Helena.

A peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America's thirty-fourth president.

"Paris After the Liberation is the first work to do justice to this extraordinary period. It is a landmark achievement, a brilliant fusion of politics, literary life, society, theater, fashion, and art woven into a rich and intimate account brimming with revelation. Acclaimed historians Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper (the granddaughter of England's first postwar ambassador to France) have drawn on an astonishing array of sources: unpublished diaries, letters, and photographs; interviews with many of the period's leading figures; and important material from archives in Paris, the United States, London, and Moscow, whose newly opened state papers have provided a wealth of completely fresh information, much of it startling. Paris After the Liberation brings to life a pivotal moment of world history, suffusing it with wit, anecdote, and brio. It is a brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable work of synthesis, a fitting celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Paris.

Not Merely a set of translations of one poem, Le Ton beau de Marot is an autobiographical essay, a love letter to the French language, a series of musings on life, loss, and death, a sweet bouquet of stirring poetry - but most of all, it celebrates the limitless creativity fired by a passion for the music of words. Dozens of literary themes and creations are woven into the picture, including Pushkin's Eugene Onegin,

-The rise, fall, and rebirth of Richard Nixon is perhaps the most fascinating story in American politics. Presidential chronicles and other outside sources have tried to capture it in full, but Nixon: A Life is the first to succeed. Nixon: A Life is the first entirely objective biography of Richard Nixon. Jonathan Aitken, who, in addition to serving in Parliament, serves as Her Majesty's Minister of State for Defense, conducted over sixty hours of interviews with Nixon and was granted unprecedented access to thousands of pages of Nixon's previously sealed private documents. The results of Aitken's interviews and research shed new light on a presidency that is just now beginning to be understood by serious students of history.....

Quest for the Presidency 1992 reveals for the first time the full story of what really happened in the tumultuous 1992 presidential election. With unparalleled access to the inner workings of the various campaigns, Newsweek's award-winning team of reporters gathered the in-depth stories of the candidates; their handlers, pollsters, and supporters; and their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses

In a narrative that possesses both remarkable political importance and extraordinary literary power, David Horowitz tells the story of his startling political odyssey from Sixties radical to Nineties conservative. A political document of our times, Radical Son traces three generations of one American family's infatuation with the radical left from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Marxist

A narrative history of psychology from its ancient Greek roots to contemporary therapy techniques.

A biography and study of the psychoanalyst's career, family, personal life, and professional struggles.