Salida Book Review

Harbor, by Lorraine Adams. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lorraine Adams has crafted a debut novel worthy of any seasoned novelist's pen. Harbor is as current as the headlines, chronicling the desperate, confused, marginal lives of a group of Arab Muslims in Boston, Montreal, and Brooklyn. Aziz Arkoun arrives in Boston Harbor after 52 days as a stowaway in the hold of a tanker. He swims to shore through icy waters, arriving ill and disoriented. His experience is comparable to that of the Guatemalan immigrants in "El Norte": what he finds when he arrives is only slightly better than what he left, but at least he is not in immediate danger of being killed. Adams does a masterful job of rendering Aziz's confusion as he confronts a strange language in an almost unknowable world, tries to suss out what illegal goings-on his cousin is up to, sleeps in a chair a few hours a night, and works in a low-paying job for a brutish boss.

Threaded through the ongoing narrative is the backstory of what Aziz escaped: forced military service in the Algerian army, a chance role as a double agent which almost gets him killed and causes him to desert, and the ordinary, everyday horror of a bloody ground war. After deserting the army, he goes home, only to have his double agency discovered, which puts him on the run again, this time to Boston Harbor. At 24, he is a veteran in every sense of the word. Somehow, he retains an insouciance and innocence through it all. Not so his roommates.

Adams raises the question: "Who is a terrorist?" What makes this book irresistible is that there is no easy answer. Is it the one reading ancient Persian poems or the Qu'uran, or the one stealing Batman toys to resell at a profit? What we are stuck with is what an FBI agent says: "...we don't have to know them. We can't, ever. We can just piece together something here with something there and draw logical conclusions. It's flawed, of course it's flawed. But it's better than the alternative." --ValerieRyan

Herbal Almanac 2005 (Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac), by Llewellyn. Wildcraft in Your Window Box Powerful, wild, and magical, herbs are among nature's most versatile plants. Whether you have a bountiful backyard garden or simply a kitchen window box, you can enjoy the magical and practical benefits of herbs. Dig into this eclectic collection of articles on herb lore and the herbal arts, and you'll uncover tips on growing and gathering these marvelous plants, and using them for cooking, beauty, health, magic, and crafts. With more than twenty-five articles by nationally recognized herbalists, Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac offers you many ways to practice herbal wisdom, including: Starting an Herbal Garden by Pearlmoon The Aromatic Treasures of India by Stephanie Rose Bird The Lore and Magic of Honeysuckle by Tammy Sullivan Herbs for Menopause by Leeda Alleyn Pacotti Savory Herbs for the Crockpot by Elizabeth Barrette Ginger Compresses by Chandra Moira Beal Monastic Herb Gardens by Lynn Smythe.

Llewellyn's 2005 Magical Almanac (Llewellyn's Magical Almanac), by Llewellyn. Magician, shaman, pagan, witch Whatever your magical worldview, you can inform your practice and add variety to both seasonal and everyday rituals with the help of Llewellyn's 2005 Magical Almanac. Over the years, this little treasury of folklore, recipes, myths, and meditations has become a trusted companion to practitioners of various magical paths. The calendar section includes information on the Moon's sign and phase, traditional Pagan holidays, and incense and color correspondences that will maximize the energy of your workings. This year's almanac focuses on magic from around the globe, and features eighty insightful articles by your favorite authors, including: Greek Wicca by Olivia O'Meir The Charge of the God by Steven E. Repko The Magic of the Crystal Ball by Sedwin Aboriginal Dreaming by Emely Flak Rasputin: Holy Devil by Denise Dumars Midnight Muse: A Spell for Creativity by Christine Jette Basic Shamanic Tools & Practices by S. Y. Zenith Sports Goddesses by Cerridwen Iris Shea Pine Tree Lore by James Kambos Chinese Creation Myths by Julianna Yau Contributors also include: Nina Lee Braden, Ellen Dugan, Magenta Griffith, Christine Jette, Jonathan Keyes, Kristin Madden, Sharynne NicMhacha, Anthony Louis, Janina Renée, and Tammy Sullivan.

Skywriting : A Life Out of the Blue, by Jane Pauley. "Truth arrives in microscopic increments, and when enough has accumulated–in a moment of recognition, you just know. You know because the truth fits. I was the only member of my family to lack the gene for numbers, but I do need things to add up. Approaching midlife, I became aware of a darkening feeling–was it something heavy on my heart, or was something missing? Grateful as I am for the opportunities I’ve had, and especially for the people who came into my life as a result, I couldn’t ignore this feeling. I had the impulse to begin a conversation with myself, through writing, as if to see if my fingers could get to the bottom of it. It was a Saturday morning eight or ten years ago when I began following this impulse to find the answers to unformed questions. Skywriting is what I call my personal process of discovery."

And so begins this beautiful and surprising memoir, in which beloved broadcast journalist Jane Pauley tells a remarkable story of self-discovery and an extraordinary life, from her childhood in the American heartland to her three decades in television.

Encompassing her beginnings at the local Indianapolis station and her bright debut–at age twenty-five on NBC’s Today and later on Dateline–Pauley forthrightly delves into the ups and downs of a fantastic career. But there is much more to Jane Pauley than just the famous face on TVs. In this memoir, she reveals herself to be a brilliant woman with singular insights. She explores her roots growing up in Indiana and discusses the resiliency of the American family, and addresses with humor and depth a subject very close to her heart: discovering yourself and redefining your strengths at midlife. Striking, moving, candid, and unique, Skywriting explores firsthand the difficulty and the rewards of self-reinvention.

Deception : A Novel, by Denise Mina. When psychiatrist Susie Harriott is convicted of murdering Glasgow serial killer Andrew Gow, her husband, Lachlan, embarks on a frantic search for material that may help with her appeal. But in going through her files, he finds layer upon layer of nasty secrets... or does he? Lachlan's diaries tell the dark and complicated story, claiming, variously, both absolute fact and deliberate fantasy. In medical school when he met Susie, Lachlan gave up his day job to be a house husband and dream of being a writer after the birth of their daughter, Margie, now a toddler. Deception (and self-deception) abounds, including the inevitable dalliance between Lachie and the au pair, Yeni, who shares her employer's primal hunger for sticky childhood candies. But it's voice, not event, that grabs hold of the reader and won't let go. Lachlan Harriott immerses us in his obsessions; like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, he repels and commands sympathy in the same instant. He is a charming, comic, intelligent narrator—and a man who might happily see his wife rot in prison, not for murder, but for the greater sin of rejecting him. Susie herself is seen as if through a long lens that can barely contain her beautiful, sorrowful image; what she did or didn't do is less compelling than what her husband reveals (or invents) about himself in his new life after her conviction. Mystery lovers have lately been looking to Scotland, in part because of Mina's fast-growing reputation; this stunning new work can only bolster the trend. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, by Jerome A. Jackson. A spellbinding history of the one bird every serious birder hopes to find, even as the world doubts its existence. In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is both a complete natural history of one of the most exciting and rare—perhaps even extinct—birds in the world, and a fascinating personal quest by the world's leading expert on the species. Jerome A. Jackson provides detailed insights into the bird's lifestyle, habitat, and cultural significance, examining its iconic status from the late 1800s to the present in advertising, conservation, and lore. As he relates searches for the bird by John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and others, Jackson offers anecdotal tales illuminating the methods of early naturalists, including how Wilson's captive ivory-bill destroys his hotel room in a desperate attempt to escape. Jackson's search for perhaps the last remaining ivory-bill takes him across the United States and into Cuba. He spends hours flying over potential ivory-bill habitat, canoeing through isolated waterways, and trudging through swamps, always playing recorded ivory-bill calls into the wilderness, hoping for a response.

Tanequil, by Terry Brooks. War threatens the Four Lands, and Shannara's only hope lies in Penderrin Ohmsford, but it's a dreadfully slim hope. To save his world, Pen must restore his aunt, the former Ilse Witch, to her rightful position as High Druid of Shannara. But first Pen must free his aunt Grianne from the Forbidding: the world of the demons. To have the slightest chance of freeing her, he must find the mystical tree called the Tanequil, and somehow craft a talisman from its wood. But Shadea a'Ru, the treacherous usurper of his aunt's position, will do anything to stop Pen--and she has already captured Pen's parents and forced them to reveal their son's whereabouts. Sen Dunsidan, the monstrous Prime Minister of the Federation, has armed his greatest airship with a horrible new weapon. And Pen is just a boy, accompanied on his dangerous quest by only a Dwarf, a young Elf, and a blind Rover girl.

Filled with action, treachery, and sacrifice, Tanequil will enthrall Terry Brooks's millions of fans as it roars to a shocking conclusion. However, newcomers to the Shannara series should not begin with Tanequil. It's the middle book of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, and the thirteenth novel of a complicated high-fantasy series with numerous characters and sentient races.

European Dream, The: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, by Jeremy Rifkin. The American Dream is in decline. Americans are increasingly overworked, underpaid, and squeezed for time. But there is an alternative: the European Dream-a more leisurely, healthy, prosperous, and sustainable way of life. Europe's lifestyle is not only desirable, argues Jeremy Rifkin, but may be crucial to sustaining prosperity in the new era. With the dawn of the European Union, Europe has become an economic superpower in its own right-its GDP now surpasses that of the United States. Europe has achieved newfound dominance not by single-mindedly driving up stock prices, expanding working hours, and pressing every household into a double- wage-earner conundrum. Instead, the New Europe relies on market networks that place cooperation above competition; promotes a new sense of citizenship that extols the well-being of the whole person and the community rather than the dominant individual; and recognizes the necessity of deep play and leisure to create a better, more productive, and healthier workforce.

From the medieval era to modernity, Rifkin delves deeply into the history of Europe, and eventually America, to show how the continent has succeeded in slowly and steadily developing a more adaptive, sensible way of working and living. In The European Dream, Rifkin posits a dawning truth that only the most jingoistic can ignore: Europe's flexible, communitarian model of society, business, and citizenship is better suited to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the European Dream may come to define the new century as the American Dream defined the century now past.

The Church That Forgot Christ, by Jimmy Breslin. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Jimmy Breslin has established himself as one of America's most distinctively Catholic voices. We have also come to know Breslin as the cocky guy from Queens, New York, who speaks insolently to powerful people and institutions, his words always tinged with a healthy amount of unsentimental outer-borough humor. Now, with a mix of sadness and anger, Breslin turns his sights on the Roman Catholic Church. After a lifetime of attending mass every Sunday, Breslin has severed his ties to the church he once loved, and, in this important book, filled with a fury generated by a sense of betrayal, he explains why.

When the church sex scandals emerged relentlessly in recent years, and when it became apparent that these scandals had been covered up by the church hierarchy, Breslin found it impossible to reconcile his faith with this new reality. Ever the reporter, he visited many victims of molestation by priests and found lives in emotional chaos. He questioned the bishops and found an ossified clergy that has a sense of privilege and entitlement. Thus disillusioned with his church, though not with his faith, he writes about the loss of moral authority yet uses his trademark mordant humor to good effect.

Breslin's righteous anger is put to use. Imagining a renewed church, along with practical solutions such as married priests and female priests, The Church That Forgot Christ also reminds us that Christ wore sandals, not gold vestments and rings, and that ultimately what the Catholic Church needs most is a healthy dose of Christianity. In that sense, Breslin has written a dark book that is full of hope and possibility. It is a book that only Jimmy Breslin could have written.

The Philosopher at the End of the Universe : Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films, by Mark Rowlands, from Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 0312322348. Mark Rowlands has a gift for revealing potent messages using nothing more than a little humor and the plot lines of some of the most spectacular, expensive, high-octane films on the planet. Learn about the philosophical lessons revealed in films like The Matrix, Aliens, Star Wars, Total Recall, The Terminator, and Blade Runner.

Why Marriage?, by George Chauncey, from Perseus Books Groups, ISBN 0465009573. Angry debate over gay marriage is sweeping the country, threatening to divide the nation like no other issue since the Vietnam War. Why has marriage suddenly emerged as the most explosive issue in the gay struggle for equality? At times it seems to have come out of nowhere - but in fact it has a history. Chauncey shows how the demand for the freedom to marry emerged from a decades-long struggle. He further illuminates what's at stake for both sides, making this an essential book for gay and straight readers alike.

The Better Brain Book: The Best Tools for Improving Memory, Sharpness and Preventing Aging of the Brain, by David Perlmutter, and Carol Colman, from Riverhead Books, ISBN 157322278X. Contrary to popular belief, forgetting where you put your keys or what you went to the store for are not normal signs of aging. They are symptoms of a distressed brain. Neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter shows readers how easy it is to regain and maintain clarity by identifying brain toxins, following a three-tiered food and supplement program, and performing specific exercises for keeping the mind alert. Readers will learn much more about stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurological conditions than doctors generally tell.

What Would Jefferson Do?, by Thom Hartmann, from Crown Publishers Inc., ISBN 1400052084. Today, 81 nations can be described as fully democratic, but democracy itself is increasingly under siege from the private sector. The author of Unequal Protection and other best-sellers shows why democracy is not an aberration, but the oldest, most resilient and universal form of human government, with roots in nature itself. Tracing the history of democracy in the United States, he identifies the most prevalent myths about it and offers an inspiring yet realistic plan for reviving Jefferson's dream before it's too late.

The Cave of John the Baptist : The Stunning Archaeological Discovery that has Redefined Christian History, by Shimon Gibson, from Doubleday, ISBN 0385503474. Near the home village of John the Baptist, archeologist Shimon Gibson unearthed a cave that showed unmistakable signs of ritual use during the time of Jesus. It contained the earliest examples of Christian art ever found, including drawings of John the Baptist and the three crosses of Calvary. This is the story of an archeological find as momentous as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the first direct evidence of a major figure in the birth of Christianity.

Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush, by Jim Hightower, from Putnam, ISBN 0670033545. While the Bushites might be unusually aggressive in pursuit of their agenda, they're still rational people who just happen to be a little to the right . . . right? No, Jim Hightower reports. They're insane. They're zealots totally dedicated to implementing their plutocratic, autocratic, militaristic, and imperialistic vision of America - and it's time we stopped beating around the bush about it. From global warming to genetically altered food, privatized government to loss of privacy, wherever Hightower turns, Bush and company are re-making America.

Backbeat: A Novel of Physics, by J. Frederick Arment, from Blue Hot Books, ISBN 1889749184. The first novel to apply quantum physics to human relationships, this is the universal story of an orphan's quest for family. Thanks to Einstein and his successors, Arment's characters have the advantage of a world teeming with virtual particles and probability waves in which orphans can reconcile the past and change the future. Readers not only experience the lead character's heartfelt plight, but also five epiphanies - possibility, connectivity, uncertainty, probability, and spontaneity - which anyone can gain with a deeper understanding of physics.

Prophecy: What The Future Holds for You, by Sylvia Browne, from Dutton, ISBN 0525948228. The best-selling author of Voices from the Afterlife turns her psychic wisdom to the puzzling, often contradictory predictions proposed by major historical and contemporary figures, including the biblical prophets, Nostradamus, George Washington, and NASA scientists. Covering topics of perennial interest such as the race to cure cancer, the possibility of nuclear war, the colonization of other planets, peace in the Middle East, and more, she offers a fascinating picture of our world in five, ten, twenty and 100 years.

The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, by John B. Judis, from Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0743261275. A century ago, Theodore Roosevelt believed that America could achieve greatness by becoming an imperial power. Forays into the Philippines and the Caribbean left a bitter legacy, however, and Woodrow Wilson repudiated imperialism in favor of a "League of Nations." Presidents from FDR to Clinton have continued to shape this vision of a "community of power" - until now. From the beginning, the Bush administration has sought security through an inherently self-defeating exercise of unilateral military power.

Crusade : Chronicles of an Unjust War (The American Empire Project), by James Carroll, from Henry Holt & Co., ISBN 0805077030. With the words "this Crusade, this war on terror," George W. Bush defined the purpose of his presidency. In response, Boston Globe columnist James Carroll began a week-by-week argument with the administration, its exploitation of the nation's fears, invocations of a Christian mission, and efforts to overturn America's traditional relations with other nations and with Us, the People. This collection of searing columns delivers a comprehensive and tough-minded critique of the war on terror.