The Paths of the Air by Alys Clare
Clare's absorbing 11th entry in her Hawkenlye series (The Enchanter's Forest, etc.) highlights the many perils of life in medieval England. One cold November day in 1196, an exhausted stranger arrives at the estate of Sir Josse d'Acquin, a loyal soldier of the king bored with inactivity. Josse gives the man shelter in an outbuilding, suspecting him to be the servant of a crusader recently returned from the Holy Land. After a fortnight, the stranger abruptly vanishes, then a body, brutalized beyond recognition, turns up in the nearby woods. Meanwhile, a prisoner exchange gone wrong has led to a hunt across Europe for a runaway monk carrying unknown treasure. Josse relies on Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye Abbey for counsel and solace, while the local sheriff, Gervase de Gifford, helps Josse track down a secret with the potential to change warfare forever. A lurid subplot set in the Holy Land adds to the suspense. (Aug.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Breakthrough: 8 Steps to Wellness: Life-Altering Secrets from Today’s Cutting-Edge Doctors by Suzanne Somers
Sweet Land of Liberty: the Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North by Thomas J. Sugrue
Starred Review. According to Sugrue (The Origins of the Urban Crises), most histories of the civil rights movement focus on the South and the epic battles between nonviolent protestors and the defenders of Jim Crow during the 1950s and 1960s. The author's groundbreaking account covers a wider time frame and turns the focus northward to the states with the largest black populations outside the south. Sugrue highlights seminal people, books and organizations in his tightly focused study that restores many largely forgotten Northern activists as integral participants in the civil rights movement such as Philadelphia pastor Leon Sullivan; Roxanne Jones of the welfare rights movement and first black woman elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate; and James Forman, advocate for reparations. The National Negro Congress, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the National Black Political Convention share history with the NAACP and the Urban League, as Sugrue traces the phoenixlike risings from the ashes of old organizations into new. Dense with boycotts, pickets, agitation, riots, lobbying, litigation, and legislation, the book is heavily detailed but consistently readable with unparalleled scope and fresh focus. (Nov.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Unholy Business: a True Tale of Faith, Greed, and Forgery in the Holy Land by Nina Burleigh
Starred Review. In November 2002, the public display of an ossuary (an ancient burial vessel) inscribed James, the brother of Jesus, sent ripples of excitement, doubt and consternation through both the religious and scholarly worlds. But when scholars took a close look, they declared the inscription a forgery based on the lack of provenance and a tremendous disparity between the physical writing of the word James and the rest of the inscription. In her captivating chronicle, veteran journalist Burleigh (Mirage) enters a dark world full of shady dealings, illicit collectors and monomaniacal archeologists. Along the way we meet an improbable cast of characters, including Oded Golan, the ossuary's owner; Andr Lemaire, an epigraphist who early on testified to the authenticity of the ossuary's inscription; Shlomo Moussaieff, a billionaire collector with a warehouse full of artifacts of uncertain value; and Israel Finkelstein, a maverick Israeli archeologist who questions the historicity of many biblical events. Burleigh draws readers in from page one and brilliantly captures the compelling debates about archeology's relationship to narratives of faith. (Nov.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Full-Court Quest: the Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School, Basketball Champions of the Worldl by Lindy S. Peavy
Everything But the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain by John Barlow
Starred Review. Self-confessed glutton, travel writer and novelist Barlow (Eating Mammals; Intoxicated) doesn't scrimp on either culinary or cultural delights in this charmingly informative and witty narrative. Barlow, a resident of the relatively unknown corner of Spain, sets himself the task of consuming every part of the staple meat of rural Galicia. Traveling with his Spanish wife, a vegetarian, and his infant son, Barlow serves up vivid tales encountered during the year dedicated to his porco-graphical tour. But this tale is more than a culinary treat. Barlow is a companionable guide expounding upon history, traditions and the personalities of Galicia. His writing style is quick, lively and filled with delicious details. He takes readers on a sublime journey of the senses, including three Carnivals, one in Laza, a thousand-year-old event, combining ant throwing and a pig head bacchanal. He explores why the cousin of Fidel Castro lives at the end of a dark muddy lane in a pokey hamlet, and tracks down Antn, the most famous pig in Galicia. And he indulges in a 12-course meal, including ribs, at one of Spain's most lauded restaurants. As the ribs sit in the gentle heat, that glorious, fat-infiltrated meat is slowly transforming into what was for me one of the most spellbinding dishes I have ever eaten. (Nov.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
Former Time magazine science writer Lemonick provides an entertaining and illuminating look at a pathbreaking astronomical partnership. When William Herschel, in 1781, discovered Uranus (which he named the Georgian Star in hopes of getting much-needed funding from King George), he was a self-taught amateur astronomer earning his living as a musician. When the king offered Herschel 200 per year a 50% drop in income the astronomer gladly accepted the chance to become the king's astronomer. His goal was to discover how the universe was constructed, and Herschel, an obsessive observer, made a remarkable number of discoveries, including infrared radiation. He also taught his sister Caroline to help with his work, and soon she was publishing her own discoveries, hunting comets and cataloguing thousands of stars and nebulae. When the king agreed to give her a salary, she became the first paid woman scientist. Lemonick (Echo of the Big Bang) paints a vibrant and revealing picture of these two scientists whose painstaking observation and cataloguing paved the way for modern astronomy. 9 illus. (Nov.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
Inkdeath by Cornelia Caroline Funke
This concluding volume in Funke's bestselling trilogy picks up where Inkspell left off, but sputters for a hundred pages filling in backstory. (Even then, an addendum is needed to identify a cast of 114 characters.) The Inkworld, full of dark magic, is under siege; the savagery of the Adderhead and his minions now extends to taking all the peasants' children until somebody delivers, as ransom, the Bluejay, a Robin Hood style character whose identity has been assumed by Mo, Meggie's father (it was Mo who started all the trouble by reading several villains right out of the book-within-a-book, Inkheart don't even consider reading this series out of order). The Inkheart author, Fenoglio, now living in Inkworld himself, has turned to drink; the odious Orpheus, when he's not under a maid's skirt, rewrites Fenoglio's work (editors!) to benefit himself. The interesting metafictional questions can we alter destiny? shape our own fate? are overwhelmed by the breakneck action, yet the villains aren't fully realized. More disappointingly, the formerly feisty Meggie, barely into her teens, has little to do but choose between two suitors. Funke seems to have forgotten her original installment was published for children. Ages 9 up. (Oct.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
