Popular Fiction & Non-Fiction at Doherty Library March 2011
Fiction
Aimee Bender - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking,
Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities. By
the Pushcart-winning author of An Invisible Sign of My Own.
Peter Brooks - The Emperor's Body
Three people find themselves immersed in dangerous political passions as well as romance,
longing and misunderstanding as they work to move Napoleon's body from the island prison
where he died 20 years before to a glorious tomb in Paris.
Emma Donoghue – Room
A five-year-old narrates a story about his life growing up in a single room where his mother aims
to protect him from the man who has held her prisoner for seven years since she was a teenager.
Dick Francis – Crossfire
After he discovers that his mother, an esteemed horse trainer, is being blackmailed and forced to
make her horses lose, disabled Afghanistan veteran Captain Tom Forsyth must use his military
skills to root out the shadowy figure responsible for his mother's predicament.
Alice Hoffman - The Red Garden
Traces the multi-generational story of wintry Blackwell town through the experiences of such
characters as a wounded Civil War solider who is saved by a passionate neighbor and a woman
who meets a fiercely human historical figure. By the best-selling author of The Third Angel.
Charles Todd - A Lonely Death: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
A latest entry in the Edgar Award-nominated series finds the intrepid Scotland Yard detective
investigating the Sussex village murders of three former soldiers, a case that puts Rutledge's
career and life on the line.
Colm Toibin - The Empty Family: Stories
A follow-up to the award-winning Brooklyn includes the stories "The Street," in which Pakistani
workers in Barcelona pursue a taboo affair; and "Two Women," in which a taciturn Irish set
designer confronts repressed emotions while working in her homeland.
Richard Yancey - The Highly Effective Detective Crosses the Line
Earnest detective Teddy Ruzak faces an impossible choice between his ethics and another's life
when a vicious psychopath targets Teddy's beloved Gal Friday. By the author of Confessions of a
Tax Collector.
Non-Fiction
Jennifer Ackerman - Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold.
Draws on cutting-edge research to dispel myths and explains what a cold is, how it works, and
the best methods for preventing colds and reducing symptoms.
Elisabeth Tova Bailey - The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Who could believe that a book about a sickly, bedridden woman and a snail would be the
charmer of the year? Bailey here recounts how a snail brought in from her garden became her
companion and savior through her convalescence. She mixes her own story with multiple
factoids about snails from a remarkable array of resources. Handled by a less gifted writer, this
would bore, but readers will fall in love.
Amy Chua - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
An unerringly honest, often hilarious, and always provocative story of one mother's adventure in
extreme parenting. Totally at odds with Western parental indulgence, Amy Chua has made an
iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, the Chinese way.
Robert Coles - Handing One Another Along: Literature and Social Reflection
Dr. Coles shows how the work of writers, artists, and thinkers of the past two centuries can
inspire our own reflections on our daily lives. He offers a compelling call to venture outside our
own selves and lives and to listen, attentively and with growing humanity, to the way others get
through life, and he encourages us to examine our own character, kindness, and complexity by
studying the wisdom of authors from Charles Dickens to Flannery O'Connor, from James Agee
to George Orwell, and many others. In this influential conversation about empathy and
engagement, Coles inspires us to seek out deeper meaning in our lives and guides us toward
achieving greater clarity, strength, and richness of understanding amid the moral, psychological,
and social complexities of the modern world.
Nora Ephron - I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections
A humorous collection of personal essays discusses the author's career in journalism, divorce, a
long-anticipated inheritance with unanticipated results, and the evolution of her relationship with
her e-mail in-box.
Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers: The Story of Success
Identifies the qualities of successful people, posing theories about the cultural, family, and
idiosyncratic factors that shape high achievers, in a resource that covers such topics as the secrets
of software billionaires and why the Beatles earned their fame.
Harman, Claire - Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World
Mention Jane Austen and you’ll likely incite a slew of fervent opinions from anyone within
earshot. Regarded as a brilliant social satirist by scholars, Austen also enjoys the sort of popular
affection usually reserved for girl-next-door movie stars, leading to the paradox of an
academically revered author who has served as the inspiration for chick lit (The Jane Austen
Book Club) and modern blockbusters (Becoming Jane). In Jane’s Fame, Claire Harman gives us
the complete biography—of both the author and her lasting cultural influence—making this
essential reading for anyone interested in Austen’s life, works, and remarkably potent fame.
Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan - Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean
Theorem
The Harvard mathematician authors of The Art of the Infinite present a history of the famous
relation "A squared plus B squared equals C squared" that assesses its contributors from da Vinci
to the Freemasons while analyzing its numerous proofs and applications.
Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves
and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such
areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization and gene mapping.