Recently in What's new Category
by John Farndon is an “encyclopedia of the world's best-kept secrets.” (031.02 F235d)
The knowledgebook: everything you need to know to get by in the 21st Century by The National Geographic Society “distills thousands of years of humankinds most significant ideas and achievements, explains how they are linked and why they are important, and packs everything into a single, irresistibly readable volume.” (Ref 031 K73)
The book of general ignorance by John Lloyd is a British best-seller revealing “all of the hugely entertaining misconceptions, mistakes, and misunderstandings in common knowledge.” (031.02 L793b)
Take me to your leader by Ian Harrison includes “Weird facts, bizarre stories, and life's oddities.” (031.02 H319t)
The sports book: the games, the rules, the tactics, the techniques by David Summers is packed with all kinds of information about more than 200 different sports. (796.02 S764s) By this way, this is probably the only book you’ll ever see that’s covered in Astroturf!
The worst of sports: chumps, cheats, and chokers from the games we love by Jesse Lamovsk is a “hilarious and informative look at the lowest moments, lousiest teams, and least impressive personnel in the history of American sports.” (796.0207 L236w)
Schott’s miscellany by Ben Schott is “a new approach to the yearly almanac offering an entertaining and informative selection of the year's major events.” (031.02 S375S 2008)
Cool stuff and how it works and Cool stuff 2.0 by Chris Woodford explain cutting-edge technology with incredible detailed images. (600 C774)
We've added lots of books related to sports this fall and many are currently on display near the magazines. You'll find fiction and non-fiction on sports ranging from football, basketball, and soccer to wrestling, lacrosse, and Nascar.
Now that basketball season is in full swing, take a look at the great photos and stories by some of SI's best writers in The Basketball Book, just published by Sports Illustrated in October.
These books will really get you thinking and they deal with very contemporary topics.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. "What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty." -- Publisher's description.
The Cobra Event by Richard Preston is a bioterrorism spy thriller highly recommended by Dr. Winfrey. "The Cobra Event is set in motion one spring morning in New York City, when a seventeen-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. Hours later she is having violent seizures, blood is pouring out of her nose, and she has begun a hideous process of self-cannibalization. Soon, other gruesome deaths of a similar nature have been discovered, and the Centers for Disease Control sends a forensic pathologist to investigate. What she finds precipitates a federal crisis. The details of this story are fictional, but they are based on a scrupulously thorough inquiry into the history of biological weapons and their use by civilian and military terrorists. Richard Preston's sources include members of the FBI and the United States military, public health officials, intelligence officers in foreign governments, and scientists who have been involved in the testing of strategic bioweapons. The accounts of what they have seen and what they expect to happen are chilling. The Cobra Event is a dramatic, heart-stopping account of a very real threat, told with skill and authority." -- Publisher's description.
