From the Barnes & Noble Review: "Charming, funny, imaginative - probably not words you would expect in a review of a book about zombies, but then again, Warm Bodies is a novel filled with surprises. First-time author Marion has dreamed up a fully realized dystopian universe. And in a great stroke of irony, he has invented a dead character who displays the most humanity of all.
That character is "R," a zombie who inhabits a rotting, abandoned airport along with a large community of cohorts in varying stages of physical decay. Like all zombies, "R" has no memory of his past life he doesn't know what job he once had, or if he had a family, or even what his name was. He only knows that some catastrophic event a war? a virus? has almost destroyed the human race, sending the remaining people fleeing to an abandoned stadium. The problem is that every so often, zombies get hungry, and they only have an appetite for living flesh and organs. The story takes a sharp turn during one expedition for "food," as "R" devours the brain of a teenage boy and suddenly starts hearing the boy's thoughts in his own head. Soon he finds himself falling in love with Julie, the boy's girlfriend. And strangely enough, she is attracted to him, too.
A most unusual pair of star-crossed lovers, "R" and Julie seek to keep each other safe from the violent forces that threaten them. In Marion's expert hands, the story takes on all kinds of real-world implications, as these two characters like countless lovers before them wonder whether their love might actually change the world."

From the publisher: "The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine. Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways. Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art."

From the publisher: "An intimate account of the Royal couple, featuring breathtaking photos from the April 29th Royal Wedding. LIFE has covered all of the lavish royal weddings since even before Queen Elizabeth II wed in 1947, and of course the magazine documented in splendid, intimate detail the "wedding of the century," that of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, years later. Now LIFE celebrates the royal engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. This book includes intimate pictures of William and Kate as they grew to be the splendid adults they are today. The best photographs of royal weddings that have already been, including those of Charles and Diana, Grace Kelly and Rainier of Monaco, Fergie and Andrew, and many others. A detailed look at the Middletons and the Windsors-the latter, royal family dating back to Queen Victoria. Photography from Buckingham Palace insiders, including pictures from Litchfield and Lord Snowdon."

From Publishers Weekly: "Debut author Morgenstern doesn't miss a beat in this smashing tale of greed, fate, and love set in a turn of the 20th-century circus. Celia is a five-year-old with untrained psychokinetic powers when she is unceremoniously dumped on her unsuspecting father, Hector Bowen, better known as Le Cirque des Reves' Prospero the Entertainer. Hector immediately hatches a sinister scheme for Celia: pit her against a rival's young magician in an epic battle of magic that will, by design, result in the death of one of the players, though neither Celia nor her adversary, Marco, is informed of the inevitable outcome. What neither Hector nor his rival count on is that Celia and Marco will eventually fall in love. Their mentors-Marco's mentor, Alexander, plucked him from the London streets due to his psychic abilities-attempt to intervene with little success as Celia and Marco barrel toward an unexpected and oddly fitting conclusion. Supporting characters-such as Bailey, a farm boy who befriends a set of twins born into the circus who will drastically influence his future; Isobel, a circus employee and onetime girlfriend of Marco's; and theatrical producer Chandresh Christophe Lefevre-are perfectly realized and live easily in a giant, magical story destined for bestsellerdom."

Library eBooks now available for the Kindle!

Amazon and OverDrive have just announced that Kindle compatibility with eBooks from the Red Wing Public Library is here! You can check out books and download them directly to your Kindle or Kindle app. See the press release for some of the details; more to follow soon! The library will be offering classes on eBooks and eReaders beginning in October. Please call Randy at 385-3645 if you are interested.

From Publishers Weekly: "In Penny's outstanding seventh Chief Inspector Gamache novel, Gamache and his loyal deputy in Quebec's Surete, Insp. Jean Guy Beauvoir, are still coming to terms with the multiple physical and emotional traumas they suffered in the previous book, Bury Your Dead. Meanwhile, the day after the triumphant opening of a show of their friend Clara Morrow's paintings at Montreal's Musee d'Art Contemporain, a dead woman with a broken neck turns up in Clara's garden in the small town of Three Pines. Gamache and his team return to this outwardly idyllic community once again to ascertain whether one of its residents is a murderer. With her usual subtle touch and timely injections of humor, Penny effectively employs the recurring motif of the chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and dark, which distinguishes Morrow's artwork and which resonates symbolically in the souls of the author's characters."

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Avast, mateys, today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! For those o' ye with a hankerin' ta larn more, check out some o' our booty:

The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World






Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquest and Captivity in 17th Century North Africa




Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels And Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships In The World's Most Troubled Waters

Great book you may have missed!

From Library Journal: "36 year-old Claire Shipley is a most modern woman in 1941. A gifted, focused photographer for LIFE magazine, a divorced single mother, and fearless in the pursuit of her career, she stumbles upon an enormous story when she is sent to cover the use of an experimental, hard-to-produce drug, penicillin, on infections. Having lost one child to septicemia, she is fiercely protective of her son. When her original story is killed, she is asked by the U.S. government to pursue it as a patriot, keeping an eye on the big pharmaceutical companies who are supposed to be mass-producing patent-free penicillin for use on the battlefield but are really working on the much more profitable cousin drugs. With an exquisite artist's eye for detail that puts readers right in the middle of New York City and the World War II fronts and incorporating all the elements of a hot, sprawling, page-turning romance-not to mention espionage, murder, crime-scene deceptions, big business intrigue, and family estrangements-Belfer once again blends fiction and facts with riveting results."

From Library Journal: "While he is out on assignment, Vatanen, an unhappy Helsinki journalist, accidently hits a hare with his car. A sudden urge prompts him to leave the car and follow the animal into the woods where he bandages its injured leg. Then Vatanen keeps going. With the hare as his buddy, the former journalist ditches his wife, sells his boat, and begins anew in northern Finland, making a living doing odd jobs and finding trouble wherever he goes. In a series of hilarious adventures Vatanen and the hare outwit a thieving crow, bloodthirsty hounds, drunken revelers, an angry bear, a religious zealot, and many pompous politicians who wander into the north. With its fiercely independent protagonist and its depiction of Finland's wild northland, this comic novel will offer readers a rare opportunity to experience Finland and read one of that country's most popular authors."

From Publishers Weekly: "Meyer's ambition matches his execution in this brilliantly complex stand-alone thriller set in his native South Africa. In 2009, Janina Mentz, director of the Presidential Intelligence Agency, is disturbed by rumors that her agency, a creation of a prior administration, will be folded into a new, consolidated national intelligence bureaucracy. Desperate to guard her turf, Mentz banks on information about an Islamic terror plot to preserve the PIA and her job. Her plan to thwart the terrorists and bulletproof her agency by showcasing its utility involves using Milla Strachan, an unemployed woman who's just left her husband, as a researcher. Meanwhile, the efforts of bodyguard Lemmer, who played a key role in Blood Safari, to smuggle endangered black rhinos out of Zimbabwe lead to unexpected trouble. Few readers will anticipate exactly how the separate plot strands will be resolved. This powerhouse read, which captures the many facets of modern South Africa, should be the American breakthrough book this talented author deserves."

From Publishers Weekly: "In this intriguing memoir, groundbreaking rapper and actor Ice-T chronicles his rise from nomadic criminal to hip-hop star. After losing both parents by the age of 12, Tracy Marrow was shipped to relatives in Los Angeles where he navigated the growing gang culture of the city and became a father at 18. A four-year tour in the army was followed by a lucrative interlude robbing jewelry and clothing stores. As his fellow thieves began to file off to prison, Ice-T turned to the nascent rap scene and scored immediate success. Continuing to reinvent himself, Ice-T went on to front a rock band and also was one of the first rap figures to work in film and television. There's little focus on the music itself, but rather on his careers and his observations on the various subcultures he passes through. What lifts the book above the general run of entertainer memoirs is the quality of these observations-Ice-T is a canny businessman, and he charts clearly the decisions that brought him up each step of a very treacherous ladder."

From the New York Times: "Chad Harbach's book The Art of Fielding is not only a wonderful baseball novel…but it's also a magical, melancholy story about friendship and coming of age that marks the debut of an immensely talented writer. Mr. Harbach…has the rare abilities to write with earnest, deeply felt emotion without ever veering into sentimentality, and to create quirky, vulnerable and fully imagined characters who instantly take up residence in our own hearts and minds. He also manages to rework the well-worn, much-allegorized subject of baseball and make us see it afresh, taking tired tropes about the game…and injecting them with new energy. In doing so he has written a novel that is every bit as entertaining as it is affecting."

From Publishers Weekly: "A family drama with stinging turns of dark comedy, the latest from Udall is a superb performance and as comic as it is sublimely catastrophic. Golden Richards is a polygamist Mormon with four wives, 28 children, a struggling construction business, and a few secrets. He tells his wives that the brothel he's building in Nevada is actually a senior center, and, more importantly, keeps hidden his burning infatuation with a woman he sees near the job site. Golden, perpetually on edge, has become increasingly isolated from his massive family-given the size of his brood, his solitude is heartbreaking-since the death of one of his children. Meanwhile, his newest and youngest wife, Trish, is wondering if there is more to life than the polygamist lifestyle, and one of his sons, Rusty, after getting the shaft on his birthday, hatches a revenge plot that will have dire consequences. With their world falling apart, will the family find a way to stay together?"

From Library Journal: "Is it possible to live a safe yet full life with life-threatening food allergies? According to Miller, the answer is an unqualified yes. A social worker who maintains the Allergic Girl blog, Miller shares her wealth of knowledge and experience gained from living with severe food allergies and coaching food-allergic clients. The book is divided into three sections: an introduction to food allergies, how to cope with them, and how to find the right doctor; several chapters on relationships with self, family, friends, lovers, and food; and discussions of how to manage dining out and participating in social events and celebrations involving food. Throughout, Miller emphasizes building positive relationships, and she coaches readers to be assertive but also patient with others who may not know how to respond to someone with food allergies. She includes sample phrases and conversations to help readers communicate their needs clearly and graciously in a variety of situations. As the parent of a child with a severe food allergy, this reviewer found Sloane's approach both positive and practical. Highly recommended for anyone with food allergies, as well as their families and friends."

From Publishers Weekly: "In Krueger's superb 11th novel featuring Cork O'Conner, the PI and his grown daughter, Jenny, get stranded by a gale on an island in Minnesota's Northwest Angle, an area of the state cut off from the U.S. by 60 miles of Canadian wilderness and the vast Lake of the Woods. Separated from Cork by the storm, Jenny discovers the naked body of a young Native American woman, who was tortured before being shot in the forehead, and her dehydrated but alive infant son. Once reunited, Cork and Jenny tend to the baby while hiding from a stranger in a cigarette boat. Once rescued, Cork teams with local residents to find out who killed the woman, Lily Smalldog, who worked at a remote religious compound. Solid storytelling and intriguing characterizations combine for a sobering look at the power of family and faith and Native American culture. Krueger never writes the same book twice as each installment finds him delving deeper into Cork's psyche."

From Library Journal: "The Korean title of this indelible novel contains a sense of commanding trust that is missing in its English translation: "I entrust Mommy [to you]." That trust is irreparably splintered when Mom disappears after becoming separated from her rushing husband on a busy Seoul Station platform. In four distinct voices, the character of Mom-a rural farmwoman whose "hands could nurture any life"-is reassembled by her eldest daughter, whose books Mom couldn't read; her eldest son, for whom she could never do enough; her husband, who never slowed down; and finally Mom herself as she wanders through memories both strange and familiar. Shin's breathtaking novel is an acute reminder of how easily a family can fracture, how little we truly know one another, and how desperate need can sometimes overshadow even the deepest love. Please Look After Mom should be one of this year's most-deserving best sellers."