Book Talk

Do It Yourself

February arrives at the library with a blizzard of books!

All off us are do-it-yourselfers at something and we have many books to inspire you.
I noticed in my travels a new trend in the area, MAJOR remodeling- sometimes right down to the frame of the house. Besides updating the look of the house it gives the owners a chance to use new products and technologies. The “For Dummies” series is always a good place to start your education and two new titles we’ve gotten are Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies by Eric Corey Freedand Solar Power for your Home for Dummies by Rik DeGunther.  The first explores natural building materials and methods, using recycled materials and increasing efficiency in all homes systems. Solar Power includes landscaping your home for energy efficiency, small and large solar projects, and reducing the effects of the sun in summer.

Before you start your green remodel, you might want to take a look at Green Building A to Z by Jerry Yudelson.  He explains the details of many green building concepts. I wonder if I can put a green roof on my house.

Affordable Remodel: how to get Custom Results on any Budget includes many suggestions for green and energy efficient building. Fernando Pages Ruiz includes advice on remodeling and updating older homes while maintaining an old look.

This is for the person really serious about alternative resources, Do It Yourself Guide to Biodiesel by Guy Purcella. He says that it is easy to make at home and the benefits from eliminating foreign oil are enormous. He does cover the limitations of biodiesel, one of which, for us northerners, is that it starts to gel in colder weather. Still, this is an interesting addition to out green how-to collection.

A different kind of green is covered in The Everything Improve your Credit Book by Justin Pritchard. The author explains the repercussions of bad credit and what you can do to get back on track.

Lots of intriguing new fiction has arrived this month.  Popular author Douglas Preston offers Blasphemy.  Isabella, a huge supercollider deep in an Arizona mountain is searching for the secrets of the universe. Nobel laureate Gregory Hazelius and his team of scientists discover something that must be hidden from the world at all costs.  CIA operative Wyman Ford is sent to unlock that secret, for better or worse.

The Malice Box seems, at first, to be a simple copper puzzle. After several strange occurrences, Robert Reckliss is told by a friend of an arcane weapon that could destroy the western world. He undertakes seven physical and spiritual quests to prevent the weapon from activating in this thriller by Martin Langfield.

After a devastating terrorist attack on the United States a civil war erupted. UN peacekeepers were sent to maintain order. Searching upstate New York for evidence of war crimes, Canadian Samuel Simpson realizes that danger might strike from any farm house and that there’s a traitor on his team.  Read Twilight by Brendan Dubois.

For those of us who remember the sixties comes Sway by Zachary Lazar. This is not the peace and love sixties, this is the late sixties when things began to turn dark. It is a fictionalized account of Bobby Beausoleil and his relationship with the Rolling Stones. A drifter, Beausoleil lived briefly with the Manson family.

Peter Russell believes in fate, so when he met the perfect woman on a plane, he knew it was meant to be. Until he searched for the paper on which she had written her phone number and realized it was lost… Beginner’s Greek by James Collins is a comedy of errors and manners and a phone number written on the title page of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain.

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian