New Books - 10/6/10

Nonfiction
Lincoln’s flying spies: Thaddeus Lowe and the Civil War balloon corps / Gail Jarrow
For two years during the Civil War, Thaddeus Lowe led a group of balloonists who spied on Confederate troops and telegraphed messages to Union generals and President Lincoln.

Fiction
Fallout / Ellen Hopkins
Nearly twenty years after Kristina met the monster, her three oldest children struggle with addiction and poor choices. Can they find the courage to break the cycle?
With “Glass” and “Crank,” this if the third and final installment of Kristina’s story.

Insatiable / Meg Cabot
Meena Harper is a successful soap opera writer with a psychic gift for knowing how people are going to die. Meena doesn’t believe in vampires and is tired of vampire books and television shows, but she can’t get away from the “undead.” In the news, there are a rash of murders-by-exsanguination (look it up!) in New York City. At work, her bosses hope to attract more young viewers by adding a fanged character to the soap. And finally, it seems that she’s fallen in love with a vampire.

Return to paradise / Simone Elkeles
The sequel to “Leaving Paradise.” Caleb left Paradise seven months ago but he’s back and participating in a program for teens affected by drunk driving. The same program as Maggie. In alternating chapters, Maggie and Caleb tell their stories as they come to terms with Maggie’s accident, Caleb’s secret, and each other.

Poetry
Time you let me in : 25 poets under 25 / selected by Naomi S. Nye
If someday, in a morning, you see you,
in a mirror or the dent of a spoon, and wonder
Where is my soul and
Where has it gone, remember this:
Catch the gaze of a woan
on the metro, subway, tram.
Look at a man. Seek and
you will find you
in the slivered space,
a flash between souls.
[from Pupil / Brianne Carpenter]

Bomber County : the poetry of a lost pilot’s war / Daniel Swift
“In early June 1943, James Eric Swift, a pilot with the 83rd Squadron of the Royal Air Force, boarded his Lancaster bomber for a night raid on Münster and disappeared.”(from the inside cover) Bomber County chronicles Swift’s search for his lost grandfather while examining the poetry inspired by the bombing campaigns of WWII.

Short Stories
Short Stories / Louisa May Alcott
Contains five short stories by Alcott, best known for Little Women. From Alcott’s experience as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War come the story of her encounter with a dying soldier (“A night”)and
“My Contraband,” a tale of vengeance involving a nurse, her Confederate patient, and his former slave. The collection also includes “Obtaining supplies,” “Happy women,” and “How I went out to service.”