We Are All Welcome Here
by Elizabeth Berg
Published 2006 by Random House

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 140006161X

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

Three women struggle against overwhelming odds for her own kind of freedom in the summer of 1964 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Despite the difficulties thrust upon them, each will find her own path to independence, understanding, and peace.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 10/24/2005

A polio victim and her 13-year-old daughter work miracles from their Tupelo, Miss., home during the summer of 1964 in Berg's latest carefully calibrated domestic drama (after The Year of Pleasures ). Having contracted polio at 22 while pregnant, Paige Dunn delivers her baby from an iron lung, and ends up raising her daughter, Diana, alone after her husband divorces her. Able to move only her head, Paige requires round-the-clock nursing care that social services barely cover. Now 13, Diana has taken over the night shift to save them money, sharing her mother's care with no-nonsense African-American day worker Peacie, who is protective of Paige and unforgiving of Diana's adolescent yearning for freedom. Paige is a paragon of kindness and wisdom, even in the face of less-than-charitable charity by petty small-town residents, while Diana and Peacie consistently lock horns. But when Peacie's boyfriend, LaRue, ventures down the perilous path of helping register black voters during this Freedom Summer and trouble follows him, Diana will gain compassion thanks to her mother's selfless aid to LaRue and Peacie. As the novel (based on a true story) is set in Tupelo, the specter of Elvis Presley naturally intrudes, for an over-the-top, heartrending finale. Agent, Lisa Bankoff. (Apr.)

Don't Look Down
by Jennifer Crusie
Published 2006 by St. Martin's Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0312348126

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

Praise for Jennifer Crusie and "Bet Me":

"Bet you can't stop reading it. Absolutely, irresistibly hilarious."

"--Kirkus Reviews"

"Crusie maintains her winning streak...wickedly witty, deliciously sexy."

--"Booklist"

"Twisting plot and the snap and flash of witty dialogue...Crusie navigates it with assurance and outright brio."

--"Washington"" Post"

"Crusie is smart and literate...and a master of fast-paced, witty dialogue."

--"The ""Seattle"" Times"

""Bet Me" has it all: laugh-out-loud lines, novel characters, and a torch-hot ending."

--"Rocky Mountain News"

"Witty, sharp, and wickedly funny," Bet Me" is eminently satisfying."

--"Booksense"""

Praise for Bob Mayer:

"Sinewy writing enhances this already potent action fix. An adrenaline cocktail from start to finish."

--"Kirkus Reviews "on "Cut-Out"

"A daring rescue mission produces a climax with enough suspense and action to satisfy the most jaded of thriller fans."

--"Library Journal "on "Dragon Sim-13"

"Fascinating, imaginative, and nerve-wracking."

--"Kirkus Reviews" on "Dragon Sim-13"

"A nail-biter in the best tradition of adventure fiction."

--"Publisher's Weekly" on "Dragon Sim-13."

"Sizzling, first-rate war fiction. Exciting, authentic, and explosive."

--"The ""Macon"" Beacon" on "Eyes of the Hammer"

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/27/2006

A one-eyed alligator and a pre-Columbian collection of jade phallic symbols figure into this nutty swampland romp from Crusie (Faking It , etc.) and Mayer (Operation Dragon-Sim , etc.). Lucy Armstrong takes a break from doing dog food commercials to take over a full-length feature shoot in the Savannah River swamps, where she finds half the crew is missing, her ex-husband in charge of stunts and a nonsensical script. Meanwhile, Green Beret J.T. Wilder, stunt double to the lead actor who secretly works for the CIA, thought this gig would be easy money, but he soon finds himself embroiled in a money laundering scheme while trying to catch an arms dealer for the Russian mob, tracking a spy through the muck and resisting his growing desire for a woman who looks like Wonder Woman-Armstrong, natch. Plenty of big guns, helicopters, clichéd gender dynamics and light repartee follow-and it's all in good fun. Readers will be happy to get a bit damp.(Apr.)

Digging to America
by Anne Tyler
Published 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0307263940

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

This luminous novel brims with tender observations about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdam, who after 35 years in this country must finally come to terms with her "outsiderness."

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/27/2006

Tyler (Breathing Lessons ) encompasses the collision of cultures without losing her sharp focus on the daily dramas of modern family life in her 17th novel. When Bitsy and Brad Donaldson and Sami and Ziba Yazdan both adopt Korean infant girls, their chance encounter at the Baltimore airport the day their daughters arrive marks the start of a long, intense if sometimes awkward friendship. Sami's mother, Maryam Yazdan, who carefully preserves her exotic "outsiderness" despite having emigrated from Iran almost 40 years earlier, is frequently perplexed by her son and daughter-in-law's ongoing relationship with the loud, opinionated, unapologetically American Donaldsons. When Bitsy's recently widowed father, Dave, endearingly falls in love with Maryam, she must come to terms with what it means to be part of a culture and a country. Stretching from the babies' arrival in 1997 until 2004, the novel is punctuated by each year's Arrival Party, a tradition manufactured and comically upheld by Bitsy; the annual festivities gradually reveal the families' evolving connections. Though the novel's perspective shifts among characters, Maryam is at the narrative and emotional heart of the touching, humorous story, as she reluctantly realizes that there may be a place in her heart for new friends, new loves and her new country after all.(May 9)

Intuition
by Allegra Goodman
Published 2006 by Dial Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0385336128

Find this book in our catalog.

Jacket Notes:

The National Book Award finalist returns with a revelatory new novel, a mesmerizing human drama set in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a cancer research lab.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 12/05/2005

In another quiet but powerful novel from Goodman (Kaaterskill Falls ), a struggling cancer lab at Boston's Philpott Institute becomes the stage for its researchers' personalities and passions, and for the slippery definitions of freedom and responsibility in grant-driven American science. When the once-discredited R-7 virus, the project of playboy postdoc Cliff, seems to reduce cancerous tumors in mice, lab director Sandy Glass insists on publishing the preliminary results immediately, against the advice of his more cautious codirector, Marion Mendelssohn. The research team sees a glorious future ahead, but Robin, Cliff's resentful ex-girlfriend and co-researcher, suspects that the findings are too good to be true and attempts to prove Cliff's results are in error. The resulting inquiry spins out of control. With subtle but uncanny effectiveness, Goodman illuminates the inner lives of each character, depicting events from one point of view until another section suddenly throws that perspective into doubt. The result is an episodically paced but extremely engaging novel that reflects the stops and starts of the scientific process, as well as its dependence on the complicated individuals who do the work. In the meantime, she draws tender but unflinching portraits of the characters' personal lives for a truly humanist novel from the supposedly antiseptic halls of science. (Feb. 28)