I love big, fat books full of useful information. That’s a good description of Reader’s Digest Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things ($15.95, Reader’s Digest Books, softcover). There are literally 2,317 ways to save money and time with page after page of recommendations such as using Kool-Aid to get rid of dishwasher iron deposits or baking soda to remove wine stains from carpets. Did you know that kitty litter can be used to make a deep-cleaning mud mask? The book is an encyclopedia of solutions to routine problems, all tested in kitchens, family rooms, backyards, and bathrooms of the book’s editors. You will be astonished by the properties of aluminum foil, nail polish or vinegar to do all kinds of things!

Anyone who loves history will especially enjoy The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer ($29.95, W.W. Norton & Company). This book relates chronological history instead of the country-by- country accounts that are the norm. Most of us have read history in terms of the Egyptians, ancient kingdoms of India or of China. It is up to us to take the fragments and provide the continuity. Bauer, however, provides the common threads between the cultures that gave birth to the modern world. This remarkable book is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all people, linking events from Britain to China, while giving proper weight to the distinctive features of each country and culture. As always, history gives us interesting personalities as well as events. The American philosopher, George Santayana said that those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it. We seem to be doing a lot of that lately and this book will tell what and why.

If you want to know why the price of gasoline has not gone through the roof, read John Ghazvinian’s entertaining and informative new book, Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil ($25.00, Harcourt). America and the world will increasingly be importing much of its oil from Africa. The author is unflinching it reporting how bloodthirsty African military dictators manage to keep their people in grinding poverty despite the billions that oil produces. A relentless corruption by leaders and others in oil-producing nations exists and the phenomenon by which such a wealth of natural resources can be counter-productive to life in these nations is explained. Oil company executives are not going to like this book much as he describes the unpleasant residue of corrupt regimes, warring tribes, and all kinds of nastiness endemic to Africa’s long history. The catch is, of course, the oil companies are in the business of finding, extracting, refining and transporting oil. They don’t get to choose with whom they must do business. If you would prefer to pay twice what you are paying now to fill your tank, you will not like this book, but if you consider the benefits of this global commodity, you will consider what the author reveals in the larger context of developing nations that can, if they want, improve the quality of life for their people, even if too many African nations are run by despots who have little interest in doing this for their own.

Every so often a book comes along that just resonates with me on a very personal level. This is the case with Remembrances of Times Past by Marta Hiatt ($15.95, Northern Star Press, Long Beach, CA, softcover). This book will primarily appeal to those of us who spent most of our lives in the last century, those born in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. It is a wonderful, sentimental journey back to times before all the technologies we take for granted. I was born in 1937 and can remember, during WWII, that milk was delivered by a horse-drawn wagon. The man who provided blocks of ice for the "ice box" in those pre-refrigerator days also used a wagon. These are among the countless things about the way life was lived before television and the computer took over. The many inventions, trends and traditions of an earlier time are recalled. The book notes that not everything was good about those days. There was racial discrimination, low wages, diseases such a polio and tuberculosis, to name a few. What shaped much of my generation, however, was the war effort to defeat totalitarianism, the birth of rock’n roll, and all the many other aspects of life that made for tons of fun. That’s what you find when you turn the pages of this delightful recounting of what, for many, were happy times.

Relationships are easy for some, but difficult for most. Single Over Thirty is authored rather ironically by John D. Husband ($14.95, Talywain Press, softcover) and is not officially due out until June 1. It is a collection of some 80 commentaries the author has put together from interviews with dozens of other unmarried folks who are among the 48 million single Americans aged 30 through 50. If this describes you or a friend, this book provides a lot of valuable feedback that confirms the experiences of this cohort and does so while providing lots of gentle laughter. The 7 Stages of Marriage: Laughter, Intimacy, and Passion—Today, Tomorrow and Forever has a long title and a subtitle to boot, "A Thoughtful Companion for Committed Couples" ($25.95, Reader’s Digest Books). With June just around the corner as a traditional month for folks to get married, this book by marriage therapist Rita DeMaria, PhD and Sari Harrar, is filled with insight as to the way this relationship develops through distinct states that should be navigated and handled in ways that are appropriate and helpful. We are reminded that half of all marriages end in divorce these days, but the authors cite a survey that 71% of married people would marry their spouses all over again. This book is filled with information, including 120 websites, programs, experts and other resources.

With the new baseball season, a rather odd little softcover book will please a rather small niche of people. A Mathematician at the Ballpark: Odds and Probabilities for Baseball Fans by Ken Ross($14.00, Plume) has been hailed as "The ultimate math book for baseball fans" by Keith Devlin, "the Math Guy" on NPR. Since it’s rumored that some people like to bet on baseball games, this book by a math professor demonstrates how to make smarter predictions using the extensive data available on batting averages and other factors. For those who enjoy life in the great outdoors, camping, hiking and such, there’s a terrific item in the form of a deck of 56 two-sided cards that fits easily into a backpack or just your pocket. It’s Don’t Die Out There! Put together by physician Christopher Van Tilburg, M.D., it provides valuable wilderness survival advice ($6.95, Mountaineer Books, Seattle, WA). Printed on water-resistant card stock, you will find survival essentials, how to assess the situation---particularly if you’re lost, and basic first aid, CPR and how to treat serious injuries.

These are litigiously perilous times for people who need to use the work of writers, composers, and others, but Joy R. Butler has just made that job a lot easier by writing The Permission Seeker’s Guide Through the Legal Jungle ($19.95, Sashay Communications LLC, Arlington, VA, softcover). It has all the lowdown on clearing copyrights, trademarks, and other rights for entertainment and media productions. Yes, this is a very specialized book, but so good it deserves a recommendation. Anyone who needs to use quotes, music, artwork, names, film clips, and many other protected materials should pick up a copy.

I have, over the years, generally avoided recommending new poets. One reason is that a lot of very bad poetry is published annually and, secondly, as a reviewer I do not want to encourage a deluge. Occasionally, though, a slim book of poetry arrives that cannot be ignored because it demonstrates such skill that it would be a sin to not call attention to it. The Sweet Fuels by Erin Knight ($17.95, Goose Lane, softcover) is filled with the kind of visual imagery and surprising use of the language to address whatever has caught the poet’s attention that one is instantly drawn into it, intrigued, and often delighted by it. The poet lives in St. Catherine, Ontario and deserves all the notice she may receive.

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The Lives of Real People

Ultimately, we seems to matter most is how people live their lives and how those lives impact on others. This is why biographies and autobiographies hold such appeal.

Princess Michael of Kent is an accomplished British historian and the author of two bestsellers. Her latest book is Crowned in a Far Country: Portraits of Eight Royal Brides ($14.00, Simon & Schuster) now in an affordable softcover edition. Each of the royals portrayed left their native lands to marry heirs to great thrones. They all shared an inbred sense of duty. None fought their predestined roles and each sought to fulfill it. Each would play a role well beyond wife and mother. The author tells us of the Prussian princess who became Catherine the Great and the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, an Austrian who became queen of France. Another Austrian, Maria Carolina became Queen of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and another, Leopoldina became Empress of Brazil. This entertaining book demonstrates that being royalty was frequently a risky job.

Coming next month is An Illuminated Life by Heidi Ardizzone ($26.95, W.W. Norton), the story of Nelle de Costa Greene who was hired by financier, J.P. Morgan, in 1905 to organize his rare book and manuscript collection. A decade later, she had shaped the famed Pierpont Morgan Library collection and attained a minor celebrity status in New York and the art world. Of interest is the way she reinvented herself from "a family of free people of color" to someone with a Portuguese ancestry. She was a woman well ahead of her times, engaging in a decades-long affair with art critic Bernard Berenson, and journeying from prejudice to privilege, attracting others to her along the way. A very different story is Kate Barlow’s autobiography, Abode of Love: Growing Up in a Messianic Cult ($19.95, Goose Lane Editions) in which she relates what it was like to grow up in a rural English village headed by her late grandfather. Her home was a ramshackle manor with 20 elderly ladies and it wasn’t until age 14 that she began to piece together the story of the Agapemonites, many of whom were wealthy, unmarried women who believed the Second Coming was imminent and that that their founder would live forever. When he died unexpectedly, his successor, Kate’s grandfather, declared himself the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He took many "spiritual" brides, among whom was Kate’s mother. How she survived this strange childhood and emerged to join the Women’s Royal Air Force in the 1960s, married, raised two sons, and immigrated to Canada to begin life as a journalist makes for a very interesting, offbeat story.

Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir is told by John Hemingway, a grandchild of the famed novelist, Ernest Hemingway, and son of his youngest son, Gregory ($24.95, Lyons Press). Both his grandfather and his father suffered from bipolar illness and fascinated by androgyny. His father was a cross-dresser who eventually underwent surgery to change his sex. His mother was a full-blown schizophrenic. How anyone survives such a family is a miracle and the author fled at one point to another country to make sense of the pain their illnesses inflicted as well as the burden his family name carried. For anyone who admires the work of his grandfather, this is a peek behind the popular legends about him, although it will not prove an easy book to read because of the curse of mental illness that suffuses his family history. Another life that reflects the extremes of life is Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomus by Alex Halberstadt ($26.00, Da Capo Press). During the early years of rock’n roll Jerome Felder transformed himself into Doc Pomus, writing some of the biggest hits in nearly every popular style of music. You will instantly recognize "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Viva Las Vegas", "A Teenager in Love", and "Turn Me Loose", but until this biography, you very likely knew nothing about the man who wrote them. His life was largely a mystery until the author penned this biography. Those who follow the music scene will find it of great interest.

Those of us who lived through the 1960s remember them has incredibly turbulent times. Al Kuettner has written March to a Promised Land: The Civil Rights File of a White Reporter (Capital Books) who was a young, Southern reporter when the civil rights struggle began in 1952, the year he was assigned to cover it by the United Press wire service. As a result, he traveled widely through the nation, meeting and talking with hundreds of people while witnessing the events that transformed American race relations. He knew all the key players, including Martin Luther King, Jr. who he met in 1955. Anyone with a particular interest in this period of our history will find this book to be an interesting eyewitness account. No one who lives in the 60’s and 70’s was left unmarked by the other major event, the Vietnam War. Gun-Totin’ Chaplain by Jerry Autry ($14.00 Airborne Press, San Francisco, softcover) recounts the author’s life as a military chaplain and chronicles his tour of duty in Vietnam from the draft notice he received on his wedding day through airborne jump school, to his experiences in the war zone. He served men of all faiths and often accompanied them into the field, earning two Purple Hearts and nine awards for valor. It was Time magazine that dubbed him "the gun-totin’ chaplain" during the war years. His views on that long ago war and the one in the Middle East are well worth reading.

Visit our Featured Books section to learn about the unique selection of fiction and non-fiction available. These are special books you may discover nowhere else.

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To Your Health!

Books devoted to health and medicine continue to provide answers to a wide variety of health issues. A number have arrived of late, so let’s look at a few.

Your Heart: An Owner’s Guide by Dr. John A. Elefteriades, MD, and Dr. Lawrence S. Cohen, MD ($20.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) is by far one of the most extensive texts written for laymen that I have seen in a long time. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in America and an estimated one in six Americans will develop some kind of cardiac problem in their lifetimes, so a book that answers just about every question while providing potentially life-saving information is surely a bargain for anyone who takes their health seriously. From hypertension to high cholesterol, and angina, to lesser-known conditions such as rheumatic fever and arrhythmia, the authors have created a book that can be easily accessed. There’s even a special section devoted to women (see below for another book on this subject.)

The Migraine Cure by Dr. Sergey Dzugan, MD, PhD, ($24.00, Dragon Door Publications, softcover) addresses a debilitating disease that affects approximately 28 million Americans. While the cure for migraines has proven illusive, the author, the former chief of cardiovascular surgery in his native Ukraine, now residing in the U.S., says his method is entirely natural and does not require powerful medications, diet or lifestyle changes. I cannot make any judgment beyond that the book claims, but if I suffered from migraines, I would certainly want to give it a try. To learn more about it, visit www.dragondoor.com.

Once thought to affect adults, bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic depression, is known now to affect children as well and it is estimated that perhaps a million youngsters are suffering from it, oftenbeing misdiagnosed as having attention deficit or over-active problems. Dr. Rosalie Greenberg, MD, has written Bipolar Kids: Helping Your Child Find Calm in the Mood Storm ($26.00, Da Capo Press). A child psychologist with 25 years of experience, the author provides parents with a comprehensive guide to understanding the disorder. Her book describes typical daily scenarios that occur with BP kids, identifies what can trigger a manic episode, and help determine the right medications that can be used if needed.

Women’s health problems often differ from men’s and one, of course, is menopause. Pam Brodowsky and Evelyn Fazio have written Staying Sane When You’re Going Through Menopause ($12.95, Da Capo Press, softcover) that provides a number of stories from those who have been through menopause accompanied with lots of good advice on how to cope. From the Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Living Well with Heart Disease by Kathy Kastan ($25.00, Da Capo Press) tells of the author’s experience of going from being a normal, athletic woman, age 42, of average weight and no known risk factors to someone who was seriously debilitated by chronic chest pain. Eventually emergency heart bypass surgery saved her life. Eight million women are living with heart disease and it is the number one killer. This book tells of how she found the help she needed to resume a normal life and, for any woman experiencing this problem, I would surely recommend it.

Many people find the practice of medicine of interest even if they are not involved in it themselves. For them, there’s Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawende ($24.00, Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company). A 2006 MacArthur Fellow, the author is a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, an author and sharp observer of the surgeon’s craft. His book asks, "What does it take to be good at something, when failure is so easy?" and answers it with a number of dramatic stories of individual cases and universal practices to illustrate how "better" is achieved. How he finds time to write excellent books is a mystery, but he has added a new one to his personal achievements.

Death remains a topic that few want to address, but it announces itself every day on the obituary pages of our daily newspapers. An interesting book on the process is Final Conversations: Helping the Living and the Dying Talk to Each Other by Maureen P. Keeley, PhD and Julie M. Yingling, PhD ($24.95, VanderWyk & Burnham) and it will particularly help aging baby boomers whose parents are nearing the end of their lives. These final conversations are very important for parents and their children, easing the transition for both. How to move from the little issues to the bigger ones is explored, along with the power of forgiveness, and accepting the experience as part of life. To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life by Dr. Sidney Wanzer, MD and Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, MD ($24.00, De Capo Press) presents in clear, logical, and practical terms what people can do to achieve a peaceful death for themselves and their loved ones. There is a point at which the end of life should be recognized and this book provides lots of good advice regarding the decisions and options that are available at that point. Early planning can do much to reduce the tension and emotion for the family that occurs as a loved one nears death. The book spells out the rights of the patient, what to expect from the doctor, and other steps that need to be taken.

Unlike cancer that is not an automatic death sentence these days, a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease holds forth an irreversible mental decline for the 4.5 million Americans who have it. Diagnosed at age 58, Richard Taylor discusses his co-existence with the mind-robbing disease in a new book, Alzheimer’s from the Inside Out ($18.95, Health Professions Press, Baltimore, MD). In 82 short essays, he describes, from the perspective of a retired psychologist, what to anticipate such as communications difficulties with caregivers, unwanted personality shifts, loss of independence, and uncertainty about the future. For anyone in its early stages or caregivers, this is a book well worth reading.

Creating a Healing Society: The Impact of Human Emotional Pain and Trauma on Society and the World by Dr. Susan Lawrence, MD ($15.95, Elite Books, Santa Rosa, CA, softcover) is a fascinating examination of the way society’s most pervasive structural illnesses—war, poverty, addiction—are pernicious expressions of unhealed personal traumas. Her focus is on the way human emotional pain and abuses are the major underlying causes of the world’s most serious problems. The author’s husband died of AIDS and her book’s editor is serving life in prison for murder. Her parents were Holocaust survivors and she, a child prodigy, had a medical career that she gave up to found The Catalyst Foundation for those dying of AIDS. This is one of those unique, inspiring books that can easily get lost in the vast flood of books these days, but her goal is nothing less than healing a troubled world. To learn more about her book and her goal, visit www.CreatingAHealingSociety.org.

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Kid Stuff! Books for Younger Readers

A really good book for younger readers can also prove highly entertaining for someone like myself who has not been a kid for several decades. As I approach the Big 7-0, let me recommend The Big One-Oh by Dean Pitchford ($15.99, G.P. Putnam’s Sons). Friendless and fatherless Charley Maplewood has decided to throw himself a birthday party with a "house of horrors" theme. What follows is a series of disasters as Charlie’s big day approaches and his birthday ends up a total, complete, utter, full-blown catastrophe! And yet it is also the best birthday a kid could ever hope for! It is chapter after chapter of laugher as in "My Theme, My Cake and Other Mistakes." I loved it. It helped, too, that I spent most of my life in a home in a town named Maplewood!

Jane Yolen has authored literally hundreds of children’s books. As good as she is, it sometimes seems unfair that one author can be so prodigiously published when so many others struggle to get just one book in print. Her latest is Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep ($15.99, Harper Collins Children’s Books), co-authored by her daughter, Heidi E.Y. Stemple and illustrated by Brooke Dyer. Written for kids age 3 to 6, it offers a series of short poems about various species bedding down for the night, from box turtles to bats. The illustrations are excellent, but the text has a familiar ring to it. Personally, I thought Goodnight, Sweet Pig by Linda Bailey and illustrated by Josee Masse ($16.95, Kids Can Press) was far better. Ideal for the very young, it uses a large format with wonderful artwork; it offers a fanciful group of pigs who invade a little pig’s bedroom to "help" her get to sleep in ways sure to keep her awake! Spanish dancers, drummers, bakers, a whole basketball team show up and, in the end, all it took was a good bedtime story in a book. Loved it! I Heard a Little Baa by Elizabeth MacLoed and illustrated by Louise Phillips ($8.95, Kids Can Press) is for the very, very young and made of strong, thick pages that defy being destroyed by tiny hands. Its theme, too, is sleep.

There’s little reason to wonder why today’s youngsters grow up worried about the environment, as there has been a library of books written to hammer home the notion that the Earth is in peril and all the various species are going extinct. Scientists tell us that over millions of years easily 98% of all species have experienced extinction. The Adventures of Riley: Operation Orangutan by Amanda Lumry and Laura Hurwitz ($15.95, Eaglemont Press, Bellevue, WA) is part of a series in which 9-year-old Riley is the vehicle for the message that is designed to teach children age 4 to 8 about the endless "endangered species", air and water pollution, and other things to begin worrying about at an early age. The book is okay, but I wonder why anyone would want to inflict such concerns on any child? In a similar fashion, One Well: The Story of Water on Earth by Rochelle Stauss and illustrated by Rosemary Woods ($17.95, Kids Can Press) is full of scientific data about the importance of water to all life on the planet. Written for those aged 9 to 12, it too provides lots of reasons to worry that all the water will disappear unless it is protected and conserved. Hard to argue with that, but I wish we would stop finding new ways to scare children with these "Green" themes. Maybe we should also tell children the Earth is 5.4 billion of years old and a marvelous self-regulating mechanism that provides life for billions of creatures from tiny amoebas to huge elephants.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that what kids really like is a good story and none are too young to begin enjoying books that tell them. Bella and the Bunny by Andrew Larsen and illustrated by Kate Endle ($14.95, Kids Can Press) is perfect to read to the very young and for early readers as it tells about a favorite sweater left at playschool where a bunny has managed to escape its hutch. Finding both is the theme and one can hardly wait to find out if they do!

For the older crowd, ages ten and up there’s The Jumbo Book of Space by Cynthia Pratt Nicolson, Paulette Bourgeois, and Bill Slavin ($17.95, Kids Can Press) that is filled with facts about comets, planets, and the universe, plus how to make a two-stage balloon rocket, cook with the sun’s rays, make a model of Jupiter’s surface, and lots of other fun things to do. This series also has jumbo books of art, crafts, music, and even cookbooks. They are handsomely illustrated and educational in ways that does not interfere with the fun of reading and absorbing the information. For the fun of fantasy, this same age group can enjoy the magical, underground kingdom of Mandria. When Princess Nevermore was published in 1995, it set Dian Curtis Regan on course to answer the questions young readers sent her. Now, in addition, to the first book, they can read Cam’s Quest: The Continuing Story of Princess Nevermore and the Wizard’s Apprentice ($17.95 each, Darby Creek Publishing) and both will prove a perfect way to curl up and escape to a world of imagination and adventure. Both books would make a great gift.

A most unusual book is Tic Talk: Living with Tourette Syndrome by Dylan Peters ($14.95, Five Star Publications, Chandler, AZ), a 9-year-old who tells his story in his own words with illustrations by Zachary Wendland, painted by Kris Taft Miller. It has a foreword by former Major League Baseball player, Jim Eisenriech. This book goes a long way to explaining this little-understood affliction and does so with humor. Tourette makes itself known often through physical twitches and vocal sounds that draw attention and the emotional impact of TS can be significant. Even for the very young, this book will provide a lesson in coping with some of the problems life sometimes tosses one’s way.

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Novels, Novels, Novels!

Of novels there is no end. With the success of "The Da Vinci Code", others have turned to the origins of Christianity to fashion their own tales. Magdalen Rising by Elizabeth Cunningham ($24.95, Monkfish Publishing Company, Rhinebeck, NY) and is now part of "the Maeve Chronicles" that center on Maeve, a Celtic girl born to eight warrior-witches and the creation of Elizabeth Cunningham. A great destiny is foreseen for her, but first she must attend a famed Druid college for bards on the Isle of Mona. There she meets a young Jew from Galilee, known to the Celts as Esus, though not the one you’re thinking of. If you enjoy stories that take you back to earlier times and strange places and cultures, this one has enough packed into it to keep you entertained for hours. The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra ($14.00, Aria Books) is now in paperback after enjoying international bestseller status. It is a historical thriller that brings Leonardo Da Vinci to life and purports to unravel the mysteries and heresies embedded in his famed masterpiece, "The Last Supper." Set in 1497, the story opens in Rome and its many twists and turns that involve the painting and the investigation that occurs because of it. The novel is said to be grounded in historical evidence, but the story stands up well on its own merits.

Paul Robertson makes his debut with The Heir ($18.99, Bethany House Publishers), just out in March. It is a gripping tale of wealth, fame, power and murder; an action-packed story of Jason Boyer who expected his father’s business empire to pass to different hands. This didn’t bother him because he knew the money was crooked and the power corrupt. Inheriting it makes him the focus of power-hungry politicians and shady business partners. Moreover, his father’s death may have been murder and his own family is now in danger. He must now fight for both his soul and his life. A good read. Also from Bethany House comes Tom Morrisey’s In High Places ($18.99) a story that combines high-mountain action scenes and a lingering mystery with themes of faith in tragedy and hope in loss. The author’s knowledge and experience in mountain climbing lends a particular authenticity to the story of a father and son starting a new life after the loss of a beloved wife and mother. Their separate quests may tear them apart. How they cope makes for a compelling story. Ladykiller by Lawrence Light and Meredith Anthony ($23.95, Oceanview Publishing) plunges the reader deep into the distorted world of a menacing, maniacal, and oh-so-meticulous killer. Four women have been savagely murdered on the streets of New York, leaving no clues and no trail. In a city paralyzed with fear, the pressure is on NYPD detective Dave Dillon to solve the crimes. If not, he can kiss his job goodbye. He teams with Megan Morrison, a beautiful, young social worker in the search for the killer that also leads to a hot romance. This is just fun to read from start to finish.

There’s a world of softcover novels to sift through as well. Many will be familiar with the name of Jennifer O’Neill, longtime spokeswoman for CoverGirl cosmetics, an actress forever remembered for her role in the Summer of ’42, but you may not know that she is also a gifted novelist whose first release, A fall Together, led off her "Circle of Friends" series that now includes a sequel, A Winter of Wonders ($14.99, B&H Publishing Group, Nashville, TN). In the first book, O’Neill introduced us to a septet of female characters struggling with real life issues of divorce and illness, among other matters of the heart. In this sequel, Lauren and Irene, two at-odds sisters, widowed mom Stephanie, and breast cancer survivor Eleanor, continue to capture the reader’s attention as they cope with life’s challenges. The setting is a small Southern town. There is a strong Christian theme to O’Neill’s stories, but it is not off-putting as it demonstrates the power of faith. Sufficient Grace by Darnell Arnoult ($14.00, Free Press) also deals with themes of faith and is also set in the South where two families, one white and one black, are profoundly affected by one woman’s nervous breakdown. When Gracie Hollaman starts hearing voices that instruct her to leave her old life behind, she abandons her family, but finds refuge in the home of two spirited African-American women who are going through life changes of their own. This is not an easy story to read because it evokes the deepest emotions within the reader. Ultimately, it is about faith, hope, and unconditional love. What is it about the South that produces so many excellent storytellers?

All the Stars Came Out That Night by Kevin King ($15.00, Plume) is just in time for baseball season as it tells a mythical story imagining the legendary greats of Major League Baseball and the Negro League coming together for the greatest game ever played! Anyone who loves baseball will love a story where Dizzy Dean faces Satchel Paige in an all-star match-up. The date was October 20, 1934, just after the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. The place was Boston’s Fenway Park. The money behind it was Henry Ford’s who yearned to see an all-white team defeat the black all-stars. This novel evokes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and a lanky, young minor leaguer named Joe DiMaggio up against Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Buck Leonard. Batter up! For a very different setting, but just as much fun there’s Sparkles by Louise Bagshawe ($l4.00, Plume) that is filled with glitz and glamour about a diamond heiress in Paris, a member of the fabulously wealthy Massot family that owns the last great, aristocratic jewelry firm in that city. It’s been seven years since the mysterious disappearance of patriarch, Pierre Massot, and his beautiful young widow, Sophie, decides to declare him legally deceased and take control of the House Massot. Her son, Tom, however, insists he is the rightful heir and devises a plan with the help of his grandmother and father’s mistress to take over the company. Open to page one and hang on as sparks fly amidst the sparkling diamonds of Paris’ premier jewelry house.

Where Witch Birds Fly by Eugene Harkins ($14.95, Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA) asks what it takes for a man to be satisfied? Richard White, a man who seems to have everything is nonetheless nagged by the fact that he is descended from slaves. An attorney, he is sent to Sierra Leone on behalf of his client, Mobil Oil. The year is 1985 and he falls into a rabbit hole of corruption and bizarre cold-war politics. It is a world where he sips cocktails with ambassadors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, and every other rogue nation on earth. The author takes us into the identity crisis he experiences against the civil war that breaks out in 1991, tearing the people and the nation apart for more than a decade. This is a look into his soul and the dark heart of Africa. A very different world is told through some excellent short stories in Ann Harleman’s Thoreau’s Laundry ($22.50, Southern Methodist University.) These twelve stories are the author’s second fiction collection and her characters confront love and loss as they span a century from 1911 to the present and range over two continents, all set against the great events of their times. It is good to know that the short story form is still being written and that a talent such as the author’s makes them so compelling. This is the book to take with you on a commute or to wile away a lazy afternoon at the beach.

No one does fantasy quite as well as the publishing house, Wizards of the Coast, and two of their authors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, have partnered to write 11 New York Times bestsellers for their Dragonlance Saga. They have sold more than 1.5 million copies over their 22-year successful partnership. Dragons of the Highlord Skies is the second book of their new trilogy ($25.95) but the catch is you will have to wait until July to get your hands on it. That gives you time to read Dragons of the Dwarven Depths and any of the other novels by this prolific pair. To learn more, visit www.wizards.com.

That’s it for May! 2007 is shaping up to be another banner year for excellent new fiction and non-fiction books, so don’t forget to tell your friends and family about Bookviews.com where, each month, they can learn about the best of the many new books being published.

Don’t forget to visit our Featured Books section to learn about some very unique books you may not read or hear about in the mainstream media.

Then come back in June!

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