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Saturday, May 28, 2011

NewYorkTimes.com Article The New Beach Read


BOOKS | May 27, 2011

Critic's Notebook: Books to Bury Yourself In
By JANET MASLIN

The beach book has undergone a makeover for 2011. As the season’s traditional big names and story lines run out of gas, new variations on old formulas have emerged. Want a story of power, greed and conspicuous consumption? Forget Hollywood; think hedge fund. Want a killer mystery? Forget that corpse in the opening chapter; think about the heroine who wakes up with amnesia and can’t trust anyone around her. Want a topical family drama about teenage lovers? Think “Romeo and Juliet” with sexting thrown in.

Visit this link for the full article:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/books/summers-beach-books-get-a-makeover.html?emc=eta1

Friday, May 27, 2011

Let Us Pick Your Next Read.


Merrick Library's Reference Department would like to make choosing your next read easier. Fill out this short questionnaire and our staff will provide you with up to 5titles according to your preferences. You will be notified when your selections are available at the Reference Desk.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week..


Parker, Michael. The Watery Part of the World. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

The life and career of Aaron Burr has long been a fertile subject for writers of both history and historical fiction. This attempt at the latter focuses on Burr’s daughter, Theodosia and the mystery around her real life disappearance in January 1813. Married to the governor of South Carolina, Parker imagines that while sailing to be reunited with her father and aid in restoring his soiled reputation, Theodosia’s ship is attacked by pirates. When the captain considers her insane, Theodosia is stranded on one of the islands which comprise the Outer Banks off the North Carolina coast. Tended to by a hermit named Whaley, Theodosia begins a new existence in that remote region. The tale segues to 1970 and the last descendants of Theodosia and Whaley who speak a dialect so rare in a nearly 200-year-old America. This section is based on actual research done decades ago with tape recorders, a format Parker weaves into this part of the novel.

For more about Aaron Burr, Merrick Library has the following books:

Kennedy, Roger G. Burr, Hamilton And Jefferson: A Study In Character.
Fleming, Thomas J. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr And The Future Of America.
Vail, Philip. The Great American Rascal: The Turbulent Life Of Aaron Burr.
Larson, Edward J. A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election Of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign.


Reviewed by Librarian, Bob.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Book Signing


BRIAN JOHNSON

Wednesday, May 25th, 7pm @ Book Revue in Huntington.
Lead singer of AC/DC, BRIAN JOHNSON, will sign his new memoir, Rock & Rollers.

In this tell-all new memoir, Brian Johnson, lead singer of AC/DC and automotive enthusiast shares his thoughts on cars, racing experiences, and celebrities. Also included are stories on his experience racing against Paul Newman in the 1992 Cleveland Celebrity Grand Prix, his final conversation with music legend Jerry Wexler, as well as a glimpse at his life in one of the biggest selling-band in history.

Brian Johnson has been the lead singer for AC/DC since 1980. In 2003, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with the other members of the band. He lives in Sarasota, FL.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week...


Henriques, Diana B. The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust. Henry Holt and Company.

The perceived gap between the rich and poor in today’s world was almost mirrored by the difference between how much Madoff’s clients had in their accounts and what was reported to them. Money from new investors was often used to pay off older ones. Bogus stock traders bought and sold at phony computers to create the illusion of industry. Henriques, a top financial writer for the New York Times, details the various times the Securities and Exchange Commission might have nabbed Madoff prior to December 2008 but failed largely due to inadequate staffing. Henriques takes an interesting stand in not including Madoff’s family among conspirators in the scandal, a contrast to general public perception that might have brought on son Mark’s 2010 suicide.

For more about Bernie Madoff, Merrick Library has the following titles:

Kirtzman, Andrew. Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff.
Oppenheimer, Jerry. Madoff with the Money.
Markopolos, Harry. No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.

Friday, May 20, 2011

International Thrillers


The Merrick Library has a great collection of International Thrillers. Here are a few new titles we have recently added to our collection.

The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry

The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene

The Informant by Thomas Perry

The Burning Lake by Brent Ghelfi

Blood Trust by Eric Van Lustbader

Defenders of the Faith by Chet Williamson

The Devil She Knows by Bill Loehfelm

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Book Signing...


KIM FARINO

Thursday, May 19th, 7pm @ Book Revue in Huntington.
Local author KIM FARINO will speak about and sign her new book, Thank God for Another Day!


In her book, Thank God for Another Day! Kim Farino demonstrates how to live a spiritually and physically fit lifestyle. She shares her story to help others suffering from self-destructive behaviors that she herself experienced before she turned her life around with help from her family, trained counselors, and her higher power. She hopes to raise awareness and help others gain the strength to live a healthy and fit life. Thank God for Another Day! will provide everything you need to get sober and live life beyond your wildest dreams and how to achieve happiness.

Kim Farino has been sober since March 8, 2005. She lives one day at a time. Farino volunteers with troubled young teens at Madonna Heights in New York. She shares her experience, strength and hope, and most importantly Kim empowers the teens to allow their inner child to come out and live life to the fullest, and to respect and love themselves.

Monday, May 16, 2011

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week...


Adrian, Chris. The Great Night. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Dateline: San Francisco. The ultimate alternative version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is being staged in Buena Vista Park in this city’s Haight-Ashbury section. In this production the fairy queen Titania is so grief stricken over the loss of her adoptive mortal son to leukemia that she foolishly releases Puck, who here is a demon capable of taking the shape of what one fears the most. In his sights are three partygoers taking a short cut each of which experienced love and loss of varying varieties. Also in attendance are homeless actors hoping to denounce the mayor for his neglect of them by staging a musical version of the cult movie Soylent Green. Lovers of “The Bard” and/or Neil Gaiman will really enjoy this inspired mixture of parallel worlds headed for a collision.

Also by Chris Adrian at Merrick Library:

The Children's Hospital


Reviewed by Librarian, Bob.

Friday, May 13, 2011

New Audiobook Arrivals


A Deputy DA specializing in high-profile cases, Rachel Knight is addicted to her work and fiercely loyal to her friends. But when her colleague Jake is found dead in a seedy Los Angeles hotel room next to the body of a teenage male prostitute, Rachel realizes she might not know those around her as well as she thinks.





A collection of crime stories looks at dark and dangerous dealings among the wealthy, with contributions by Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Ted Bell, S. J. Rozan, David Morrell, Harley Jane Kozak and many more.





When Osama Bin Laden announces that he will strike again on September 11, 2010, disgraced CIA agent Brooke Chandler thinks he knows how to stop the looming attack. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda operative Amer Al Zaroor has stolen a nuclear weapon in Pakistan and, on Bin Laden's orders, is preparing to launch a devastating attack on Israel. Now, Chandler must regain this White House's confidence and halt Al Qaeda's plans before the world witnesses another horrible terrorist attack.



Chronicles the iconic chef's contributions as a member of the OSS during World War II and her efforts at the side of her husband to support an agent accused of being a spy, describing how their wartime experiences shaped their characters, relationships, and ambitions.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Read a Mystery in May!

The Merrick Library has a fantastic selection on mystery titles. These are just of few of our upcoming titles for May.



Buried Secrets
By Joseph Finder

A total wow of a read, Finder's second novel starring Nick Heller (after Vanished, 2009), who does intelligence work for private clients, backed up by staff including a digital forensics expert, gets off to a quick start and keeps the throttle wide open for the whole ride. This is the kind of book you have to look up from, every once in a while, just to collect yourself.


Iron House
By John Hart

It isn't as if Hart's career needed jump-starting. His first three stand-alone thrillers have been greeted by an ever-growing crescendo of praise, including two Edgar Awards. Definitely not the kind of writer who needs a breakthrough book. And, yet, Iron House lifts Hart to an altogether new level of excellence.




The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes
By Marcus Sakey

A man awakens on a deserted beach, naked, wet, and suffering from hypothermia. He has no idea who he is, where he is, or how he got there. He staggers to a Beemer parked behind the beach. In it, he finds warmth, clothes that fit him, cash, a Rolex, a gun, and a car registration in the name of Daniel Hayes of Malibu, California.


You Believers
By Jane Bradley

Bradley gives readers a searing three-dimensional look at a horrific crime in her mesmerizing debut, which is narrated in turn by everyone affected by the cold-blooded murder, including the sweet-natured victim, the sociopathic killer, his weak-willed companion, and most memorably, the tough, brave woman who heads a search team.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

New Audiobooks

Montan wildfire fighter Rowan has a strict rule: never get romantically involved with anyone she works with. But the moment she meets new recruit Gull Curry that rule is severely tested. And when it becomes clear that someone blames Rowan for her jump partner's death, and is determined to get revenge, Rowan finds that she needs Gull's help and support more than ever.



Rose McKenna volunteers as a lunch mom in her daughter Melly's school to keep an eye on Amanda, who's been bullying Melly. When a horrible fire erupts, Rose must save both girls. She succeeds, but then things go awry and the small community turns against Rose in the aftermath.





When Mark Bradley was accused of having an affair with a student, he lost his job and both he and his wife Hilary lost their reputations. Now a year later, a teen girl is found dead on a beach near their Lake Michigan island town and Mark immediately falls under suspicion. As Hilary tries to clear her husband's name, she discovers the victim was the only witness to a horrific crime years before. Nobody is willing to listen, except for detective Cab Bolton.


Special Branch officer Thomas Pitt, hastening to rendezvous with a secret informant, arrives a second too late, preceded by a knife-wielding assassin. As he pursues the killer and the information he needs to stop a devastating plot against the British government, his clever wife Charlotte heads to Dublin to investigate a case involving Pitt's supervisor, Victor Narraway.



Eight years after her toddler is abducted in a cruel act of vengeance, CIA agent Catherine is unable to accept that she will never find her son and taps forensic sculptor and fellow victim of a lost child Eve Duncan for assistance in establishing her son's age-progressed appearance.



Private investigator Regan Reilly and her husband Jack, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, hop from one Jersey shore resort town to the next in hopes of solving a tough case, one which is complicated when Regan bumps into an old friend she hardly recognizes.

Monday, May 2, 2011

New Fiction Paperbacks


Husband and Wife
by Leah Stewart

At age 35, Sarah Price finds her world turned upside-down by a shocking revelation: her husband’s upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based on fact. Trying to understand what exactly has happened to her dreams, Sarah begins her quest to discover which version of herself is the essential one—the artist, wife, mother, or someone else entirely.



Father of the Rain
by Lily King

Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction and a New York Times Editors' Choice, Lily King's masterful third novel “is a big, powerful punch of a novel, a gripping epic about a father and daughter that plumbs the dark side of a family riven by addiction and mental illness. There's something so raw and affecting about Daley's love for her damaged father that the book will linger in your mind long after you've finished it"



Backseat Saints
by Joshilyn Jackson

Raw, tangy and funny, Backseat Saints is an enthralling peek into the secret sorority of mistreated women. Follow the journey of one courageous, witty woman who decides she’s not going to take this anymore. I love reading about smart, flawed, and ultimately wise women, like Rose Mae.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week...


Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. Alfred A. Knopf.

Some cynical jokester long ago defined an “historian” as one who reads ten books on a subject in order to write number eleven. Harvard history professor Jasanoff has proven she is not of that ilk in compiling a thorough account of those on the other side of the American Revolution. An estimated 60,000 people left the new nation for religious, commercial and family concerns that accompanied loyalty to George III of Great Britain. Many settled in parts of Canada, including 2000 former slaves in Nova Scotia who received British transport to Sierra Leone to establish there an abolitionist-backed colony. Many Southern loyalists wound up in Jamaica and eastern Florida, serving both as an enclave for keeping their slaves and a key outpost for the coming War of 1812. Left behind by their once British military allies were the Iroquois and Mohawk peoples who sought refuge from everyone in the Lake Ontario region.