New Book Announcements New Titles on BookAnnouncementscom



May 11, 2005 -- New Book Announcements - New Titles on BookAnnouncements.com

This Common Ground : Seasons on an Organic Farm
by Scott Chaskey
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (April 21, 2005)
ISBN: 0670034290

Since 1990, Scott Chaskey has worked as a land steward and farmer for the Peconic Land Trust at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York, an organic community farm. Over the years, he has recorded his meditations on weather, wildlife, soil, seed, root, plant, and flower, and in This Common Ground, he has organized some of these reflections season by season, through the course of one year on the farm. Chaskey's observations reflect a doer's respect for the rhetoric of the fields and a firsthand knowledge of the interdependence of soils, plants, animals, and humans. His contagious sense of wonder and artistic sensibility illustrate why planting and reaping are such an important part of what defines the human community and the human condition.

Too Many Secrets
by Laura Mcclendon
Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Turnkey Press (April 30, 2005)
ISBN: 097649812X

"You have to help me," the woman said desperately. Cassandra Masters' life wasn't turning out the way she had planned. There was a time when she had it all figured out-first med school, then setting up practice in sunny Florida, then settling down to raise her family. Instead, she's a widow at twenty-nine, with one child, working as a private investigator in upstate New York. But none of that really matters to the people who seek out the best, and most elusive, detective in town. These are the people who want answers, better yet, miracles it they can get them. And, the woman standing before her is no exception.

With Eleanor Moorehouse's plea for help, and an old yearbook, she entices Cassandra to investigate the death of her husband, a local doctor whose saintly image over-shadowed his personal demons. With help from her neighbor and confident David and a host of diverse characters ranging from a Catholic priest to a big, black dog, she eventually unravels the mystery of Dr. Moorehouse's life and his death. Too Many Secrets challenges its reader to dissect this intricately woven story of deception and murder.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
by Koren Zailckas
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (February 7, 2005)
ISBN: 0670033766

From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, twenty-four-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes "the usual." With the stylistic freshness of a poet and the dramatic gifts of a novelist, Zailckas describes her first sip at fourteen, alcohol poisoning at sixteen, a blacked-out sexual experience at nineteen, total disorientation after waking up in an unfamiliar New York City apartment at twenty-two, when she realized she had to stop, and all the depression, rage, troubled friendships, and sputtering romantic connections in between. Zailckas's unflinching candor and exquisite analytical eye gets to the meaning beneath the seeming banality of girls' getting drunk. She persuades us that her story is the story of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics-yet-but who use booze as a short cut to courage, a stand-in for good judgment, and a bludgeon for shyness, each of them failing to see how their emotional distress, unarticulated hostility, and depression are entangled with their socially condoned binging.

Daughter of Heaven : A Memoir with Earthly Recipes
by Leslie Li
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Arcade Publishing (April 4, 2005) ISBN: 1559707682

From Booklist
In the tradition of Amy Tan, novelist Li weaves stories of her family with the recipes of her ancestry. The book centers on her relationship with both her father and Nai-nai, her grandmother, who lands in New York City for an extended visit. It also concerns the push-pull bond with a heritage that demands obedience to specific high-held standards, whether involving the selection of a career or marriage. She celebrates a host of festivals, from the ubiquitous Chinese New Year with good-luck money gifts to the little-known April 4 Festival of Grave Sweeping. In stories and in the nearly 20 recipes (including Drunken Chicken and Cantonese Fried Rice), Li reveals the tale of an Asian woman caught between many different worlds and times and places. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved

Looking for God: Seeing the Whole in One
by Chuck Hillig
Paperback: 136 pages
Publisher: Black Dot Publications (April 1, 2005)
ISBN: 0964974002
This extradordinary book has a one-inch hole drilled through the exact center of each of the 136 pages. The Author uses the spatial emptiness of the void to share a profound and universal Truth that can, in fact, only be discovered within. By pointing to the empty hole on each of the pages, the Author is also pointing to the empty void in the center of you, too.

Touched by the Extraordinary
by Susan Barbara Apollon
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Matters of the Soul (January, 2005)
ISBN: 0975403648

"Touched by the Extraordinary" backs up spiritual revelation with scientific research and reveals the many ways you can experience and communicate with the extraordinary.

I Right the Wrongs : A Novel
by Dylan Schaffer
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (June 6, 2005)
ISBN: 1582345066

In this sequel to Misdemeanor Man, Dylan Schaffer returns with a mind-bending legal whodunit about small crime, big crime, and the reluctant lawyer caught in the middle.

God without Religion: Questioning Centuries of Accepted Truths
by Sankara Saranam
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Pranayama Institute (July 1, 2005)
ISBN: 0972445013

In a groundbreaking approach to today's tough spiritual and social dilemmas, God Without Religion, with a foreword by Arun Gandhi, offers an intelligent and compassionate bridge from dogmatic belief systems to progressive spirituality. Sankara Saranam shows why organized religion has long been the cause of humanity's worst wars and most acute suffering-then guides us beyond our divisive history into more expansive perceptions capable of creating a unified, peaceful future.





New Book Announcements New Titles on BookAnnouncementscom