The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
STAFF PICKS
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Discover new titles from the recommendations of your favorite staff members at the Burleson Public Library.
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The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Book recommended by Gayla, Library Director
Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons.Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood-the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers-Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah-the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a damaged youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate, immediate connection. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of Biblical women's society.
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Smart People, directed by Noam Murro
Movie recommended by Gayla, Library Director
Ever since his wife passed away, Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) has become overly acerbic and self-absorbed. He's alienated his son (Ashton Holmes) and transformed his daughter (Ellen Page) into a friendless overachiever. Now, at the precise moment Lawrence thought he had finally figured it all out, his life comes crashing down all around him as he falls for a former student (Sarah Jessica Parker) and his shiftless adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church) comes knocking on the door in search of a place to stay. Though Lawrence always relied on his intelligence to get him out of life's little jams in the past, it's going to take quite a bit more than intellectual thinking to move past this sticky stage in his suddenly chaotic life. [Rated R]
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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Recommended by Sara, Technical Services Librarian
Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an
idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For
generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog
whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong
friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal
uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father
dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm-and into
Edgar's mother's affections.
Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his
father's death, but his plan backfires -- spectacularly. Forced to flee into the
vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting
for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him. But his
need to face his father's murderer and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn
Edgar ever homeward.
David Wroblewski is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes -- the
elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful
vision rendered in the falling rain -- create a riveting family saga, a
brilliant exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable
modern classic.
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Dexter:
The Second Season
Television series recommended by Sara, Technical Services Librarian
Dexter is a crime drama about Dexter Morgan, a man who leads a double life as an incredibly likeable forensics expert for the Miami Police Department and as an emotionless vigilante serial killer. Taught by his foster father to harness his lust for blood and killing Dexter lives by his own strict moral code - he only kills murderers who can't otherwise be brought to justice. Dexter is a killer who grapples with fitting into society while at the same time he struggles with his inability to feel emotion. The irony of Dexter's life is that he works closely as a blood splatter analyst with the very people who hunt his kind - the homicide department. The series is based on the acclaimed novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay.
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Serge with
Confidence by Nancy Zieman
Book recommended by Carolyn, Library Aide
Timesaving techniques are a big part of today's hobbies, and in this beginner's guide to serging author Nancy Zieman demonstrates the essential skills to quickly and easily creating stunning fashions, accessories and home décor projects.
This book gives sewers:
* Solid skills for operating multi-threaded, multi-needled sergers and completing sewing projects more quickly than with regular sewing machines
* Guidelines to serging tools and terms
* 20 projects to enhance the home and wardrobe
* Confidence to tackle more complex techniques and projects
Serging With Confidence empowers sewers to tackle a new skill, and seek out projects to challenge themselves.
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Eureka: Season One
Television series recommended by Carolyn, Library Aide
Discover why some of the government's best-kept secrets are being hidden away in the small town of Eureka where the work of America's brightest scientists can lead to brilliant innovations or sometimes total chaos.
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Nobody's Princess by
Esther Friesner
Recommended by Carolyn, Children's Services Coordinator
She is beautiful, she is a princess, and
Aphrodite is her favorite goddess, but something in Helen of Sparta just
itches for more out of life. Not one to count on the gods—or her looks—to take
care of her, Helen sets out to get what she wants with steely determination and
a sassy attitude. That same attitude makes Helen a few enemies—such as the
self-proclaimed "son of Zeus" Theseus—but it also intrigues, charms, and amuses
those who become her friends, from the famed huntress Atalanta to the young
priestess who is the Oracle of Delphi.
In Nobody's Princess, author Esther Friesner deftly weaves together
history and myth as she takes a new look at the girl who will become Helen of
Troy. The resulting story offers up adventure, humor, and a fresh and engaging
heroine you cannot help but root for.
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Cutthroat Island, directed by
Renny Harlin
Movie recommended by Carolyn, Children's Services Coordinator
Geena Davis stars in this adventure saga as the most swashbuckling female pirate to ever lay waste to the seven seas. Morgan Adams (Davis) is the daughter of a pirate who has followed in her father's footsteps. When he dies, he passes along his ship, a crew of bandits, and one third of a treasure map (which happens to be tattooed on his skull). Morgan is eager to search out the rest of the map and retrieve the riches, but the fragment she holds is in Latin. Morgan then buys a well-educated slave, William Shaw (Matthew Modine), who can read the ancient language and already has a taste for the criminal life. However, Morgan and William are not long into their search when they discover that someone else is following the same trail for the rest of the treasure map: Dawg Brown (Frank Langella), Morgan's uncle and as black-hearted a scurvy dog as ever boarded a ship. [Rated PG-13]
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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Recommended by Sandy, Reference Librarian
The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod huts to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out.
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Dan
in Real Life, directed by Peter Hedges
Movie recommended by Sandy, Reference Librarian
Advice columnist Dan Burns (Steve Carell) is an expert on relationships but somehow struggles to succeed as a brother a son and a single parent to three precocious daughters. Things get even more complicated when Dan finds out that the woman he falls in love with is actually his brother's new girlfriend. Carell is joined by a brilliant all-star supporting cast including Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest for a heartfelt fun-filled comedy that's "laugh-out-loud funny". [Rated PG-13]
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Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths Destroying Your Prosperity by Garrett B. Gunderson
Recommended by Harold, Reference Librarian
Our financial lives are directly connected to our societal contributions, and we must be financially free in order to achieve our potential. Many, however, are kept from living their ideal lives because of misguided traditions in the world of personal finance. Garrett B. Gunderson challenges destructive myths, common cliches, and faulty retirement planning advice to plainly demonstrate the following: 401 (k)s and the stock market are extremely risky investments for most people. Learn how to create safer investments that are collateralized, cash-flowing, controllable, and aligned with your expertise, passion, and purpose. Conventional retirement planning strategies, techniques, and products may prevent you from fully enjoying retirement. You can maximize the productivity of your resources, reduce risk, and retire well with the right education and a proper macroeconomic plan. Net worth is a poor indicator of wealth and your ability to retire well. What matters is cash flow, and this book will teach you how to develop it. Debt may not be what you think it is. Learn the proper definition of debt and how this understanding can increase your prosperity. "High risk equals high returns" is dangerous dogma. Learn how to increase your returns and reduce your risk through smart, value-based investing.
Killing Sacred Cows is a must-read for mission-driven individuals who: want to learn the rules that the truly wealthy live by, question common financial assumptions and teaching, mistrust the follow-the-herd mentality, desire a purposeful, passionate, and prosperous life.
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Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman
Recommended by Harold, Reference Librarian
In bestseller Kellerman's uneven 17th novel to feature LAPD Lt. Peter Decker and wife Rina Lazarus (after 2007's The Burnt House), Decker must solve a 15-year-old cold case-the murder of saintly Bennett Little, a high school history teacher whose bound body the police found, with three shots in the back of his head, in the trunk of Little's Mercedes. When unscrupulous music producer Primo Ekerling turns up dead in the trunk of his Mercedes, Genoa Greeves, a wealthy computer mogul with fond memories of Little as a teacher, offers the LAPD a seven-figure charitable donation to reopen the case. Early in the reinvestigation, Decker is brought up short when one of the original cops on the case "eats his gun" just before a scheduled appointment with the lieutenant. Finding a link between Little and Eckerling won't prove easy.
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Click here to visit Faye Kellerman's official website
Inner City Miracle: a Memoir by Greg Mathis
Recommended by Gwen, Circulation Supervisor
Millions have seen him on his nationwide TV show, dispensing
justice in his own charismatic style. But Judge Greg Mathis’s own rise to
success has been a trial by fire. In this truly candid memoir, his harrowing
life on both sides of the law is revealed for the first time.
It starts in Detroit—but far from the court where Greg would one day preside.
Raised in the hell of the Herman Garden Projects, he grows to become a
“cool-dressing, do-anything gangsta.” His father gone, his mother juggling two
jobs, he falls in with the Errol Flynns—“funkified English gentlemen” in
three-piece suits and Borsalino hats, urban Robin Hoods who are truly stylish as
they steal from everyone and give to themselves.
Considered bright but incorrigible, Greg is sent to stay in his middle-class
cousin’s mixed neighborhood, where he enlists the local white youth in
wrongdoing. Even jail can’t keep him from going bad again once he gets out. Then
a threat to his beloved mother causes a shaken Greg to make a promise in a
prayer to God: save my mother and I will straighten up.
To his and everyone else’s surprise, he keeps his side of the bargain. Inspired
by The Autobiography of Malcolm X, working at McDonald’s by day and
attending classes by night, Greg pulls himself through high school and college
and then law school, using in positive ways the innate intelligence that made
him a master at crime. Soon he becomes the youngest judge in Michigan history, a
District Court judge and, at last, undaunted by the odds and propelled by his
personal story, a sought-after and highly paid TV star.
In its blunt,bold, and sometimes hair-raising honesty, Inner City Miracle
is both a cautionary and an inspiring story, one sure to stun all those who come
to Judge Mathis’s TV courtroom every day.
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Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot by Max
Lucado
Recommended by Linda, Circulation Services
It's Sunday afternoon and you're already dreading the inevitable Monday morning. You spend 50+ hours at a job you hate, only to come home too exhausted to pursue anything other than reality TV.
Well, you are not alone: 87 percent of workers don't find meaning in their work and 80 percent believe their talents are not used. And there are consequences-whether or not we realize it, our resulting attitude impacts our health, our relationships, and our fundamental sense of happiness-but best-selling author Max Lucado has a cure.
We are all unique individuals, created in God's image, with our own gifts, strengths and passions. In his winsome voice, Max will encourage you to explore your uniqueness, put it to work, and redefine your concept of career.
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Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck
Movie recommended by Linda, Circulation Services
Ben Affleck's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Gone, Baby, Gone stars Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator from working-class Boston who takes on a case involving a kidnapped girl. The girl's aunt begs Patrick to take the case because he has connections to criminal Boston that the police do not. He agrees and along with his partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), they uncover a web of corruption that threatens the relationship between the two. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman co-star as members of the Boston Police Department. [Rated R]
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Shadowlands, directed by Richard Attenborough
Movie recommended by Kaylon, Circulation Services
This emotionally moving romantic drama was adapted by William Nicholson from his own acclaimed play, based upon the real-life romance (during the 1950s) between the British writer C.S. Lewis and a divorced American poet named Joy Gresham. Best known for writing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is living comfortably as a respected Oxford don, his academic lifestyle a kind of shell protecting him from the emotional risk of love. Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) arrives at Oxford as an avid admirer of Lewis's writing, and the safety of his collegiate routine is quickly disrupted when Lewis realizes that he's fallen deeply and unexpectedly in love. Their courtship is uniquely engaging; he's shy and uncertain, she's outspoken and bold. But when Joy is diagnosed with cancer, Lewis's Christian faith is put to the test--he cannot fathom why their happiness together would be so drastically challenged. Together, they find a way to accept and honor the time they have shared together, and under the sensitive direction of Richard Attenborough, Shadowlands arrives at a conclusion that is both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. Hopkins and Winger are equally superb in this absorbing story of personal and spiritual transformation. [Rated PG]
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My Heart Remembers by
Kim Vogel Sawyer
Recommended by Carrie, Circulation Services
When a tenement fire in 1866 New York City leaves three Irish immigrant siblings parentless, the children are placed on an "orphan train" and sent to be adopted out West. The children are separated when each is taken by a different family, and eight-year-old Maelle, apprenticed to a traveling photographer, vows to be reunited with her brother and sister. A sympathetic protagonist and interesting historical detail enhance this sweet, simple story of family bonds and faith that spans nearly 20 years.
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Prison Break: Season One
Television series recommended by Aaron, Circulation Services
In the opening moments of the 2005 hit series Prison Break, successful Chicago structural engineer Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller, in a star-making role) enters a bank and fires a handgun into the air. Within moments he's arrested, then tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years at Fox River State Penitentiary. The prisoner simply grins, though, because this is just the beginning of his elaborate plan. His brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), has been caught up in a government conspiracy and sits on death row at Fox River for a murder he did not commit. While the brothers' lawyers, Veronica (Robin Tunney) and Nick Savrinn (Frank Grillo), fight to expose the conspiracy, Michael takes it upon himself to break his brother out, using blueprints of the prison that have been concealed in the design of his amazing upper-body tattoo (which requires four hours of work by the makeup artists).
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The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe
Recommended by Brent, Circulation Services
Thousands of reports of a wide variety of mysterious primates have intrigued humans since the beginning of recorded history, yet these shy and reclusive beings have eluded the most diligent attempts to verify their existence. Here is the first-ever comprehensive study on an astonishing variety of puzzling apelike and humanlike animals that are still being seen today. This fully referenced volume includes range maps and typical footprints for each type of undiscovered creature sighted around the world, as well as:
Actual eyewitness accounts of sightings
Detailed Illustrations
Newest findings in an exciting branch of cryptozoology
Likeliest locales and most common subtypes for sighting
Advice on what to do if a sighting occurs
And much more!
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Eggs 101: A Video Project
Documentary recommended by Brent, Circulation Services
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Click here to visit the website for the American Egg Board
Amelie, directed by
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Movie recommended by Zach, Circulation Services
Perhaps the most charming movie of all time, Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single waitress who decides to help other lonely people fix their lives. Her widowed father yearns to travel but won't, so to inspire the old man she sends his garden gnome on a tour of the world; with whispered gossip, she brings together two cranky regulars at her café; she reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant. Gradually she realizes her own life needs fixing, and a chance meeting leads to her most elaborate stratagem of all. This is a deeply wonderful movie, an illuminating mix of magic and pragmatism. [Rated R]
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