New York Times Literary Treat of the Week.....

Grunwald. Lisa. The Irresistible Henry House.


“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” Martha Gaines might have used these words from King Lear to rail against the ingratitude of the orphan she kept out of all the “practice babies” used over two decades in her home economics course at all-female Wilton College. How Henry turned out was to a degree Martha’s doing since she taught for years that babies needed foremost to be fed and kept clean instead of coddled into a sense of belonging to another. Now that priority is being proved wrong by science and Martha is dispossessed not only by Henry but also the College in changing times. In his twenties Henry has a relationship with a woman who was also a “practice baby.” Grunwald bases her novel on the actual though little known practice for half a century of bringing orphan infants to campuses for learning homemaking complete with child.

Get Focused on Foreign Affairs.

ForeignAffair.com has featured reading lists this month.

Check out their selections:

What to Read on the European Union
What to Read on Foreign Aid
What to Read on Gender and Foreign Policy
What to Read on Oil
What to Read on State Building

New Merrick Marvels

We have added some NEW Merrick Marvels to our collection.

The Secret Daughter By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda

The Surrendered By: Chang-rae Lee

New Audiobook Arrivals!

Jules Farentino knows that her teenaged half-sister, Shaylee, has been having problems lately. But when she learns of her mother's plan to send Shay to an elite boarding school, she's skeptical. The Academy is a remote, secluded institution with a reputation. But one of its students went missing six months ago and has never surfaced. And the further Jules digs, the more concerned she becomes. On impulse, Jules applies for a teaching job at the Academy, and once there, her suspicions grow.





Arriving in the ancient Byzantine city in the year 1273, Anna Zarides has only one mission: to prove the innocence of her twin brother, Justinian, who has been exiled to the desert for conspiring to kill Bessarion, a nobleman. Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, Anna moves freely about in society, using her skills as a physician to manoeuver close to the key players involved in her brother's fate.





With an ailing mother to support, attorney Lisa Shewmaker takes a job as a research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. While reviewing cold cases in the Fayette County courthouse, she comes across photos that may help her uncover details about her mysterious past. But when a series of catastrophes strike close to home, Lisa confides in Scott, and their relationship develops into something completely different. Together Lisa and Scott unravel a terrifying web of criminal connections that could destroy the very fabric of Lisa's life--if she lives long enough, that is.







On the run from drug dealers, Alice Connelly spikes her twin sister Bennie's drink in an attempt to steal her identity and money. The plan works perfectly, and Bennie is left to explain her situation to the police. When her pleas fall on deaf ears, she teams up with another of Alice's victims to reclaim her identity.

Books into Movies

View the trailer for the upcoming movie, "Eat, Pray, Love" starring Julia Roberts here

The movie, based on Elizabeth Gilbert's popular memoir, hits theatres August 13th.

NEW Book Club In A Bag Title.

The Merrick Library has added a new title to our Book Club in a Bag Service.



American Pastoral By: Philip Roth is now part of our collection.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week......

Paulson, Henry M, Jr. On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System.

Librarian Bob revieved this pick of the week.

Talk about a spot you would not even give to a leopard. Thirteen months after Paulson left a three-decade career at Goldman Sachs to become George W. Bush’s final Treasury secretary the nation faced a financial crisis. Paulson was forced to abandon the “laissez-faire” (no government interference) doctrine he upheld in business to engineer bailouts of Bear Stearns, Citigroup and other such institutions. Paulson crossed political lines to form an effective alliance with House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank. In “On the Brink” Paulson praises then President Bush for being able to ask “simple and sensible questions” on financial policies that often proved politically unpopular. Barack Obama appeared to Paulson “informed and thoughtful,” while John McCain was at open odds with the Treasury Secretary over the bailout strategy. More than anyone Paulson convinced Japan and China to “keep faith” with United States banks and government securities.

New Audiobook Arrivals!

Bart Minnock, founder of the computer gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical. The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game.





What initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach. Jesse Stone and private investigator Sunny Randall team up to solve two cases involving the gunshot murder of Petrov Ognowski and a religious cult holding an 18-year-old girl against her will.





A psychologist specializing in art therapy to help traumatized victims, Chloe Marin, the survivor of a brutal attack ten years earlier, encounters the killer from her past while investigating the disappearance of a young swimsuit model.






When Mary Alice Brannigan comes home to Ohio to restore the Dreamland amusement park, she doesn't expect to fall in love with a clown. Nor does she expect to find that she's the newest recruit in the Guardia, an elite team of demon fighters formed centuries before to guard the five Untouchables, the most powerful demons in the history of the world, now imprisoned right there in Dreamland.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week.....

Benjamin, Melanie. Alice I Have Been. Delacorte.

With the March 5 movie release of Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland" questions reemerge about the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's classic. In novel form supported by extensive research Benjamin pictures the pampered Oxford childhood of Alice Liddell and her "relationship" with stuttering mathematics teacher Charles Dodgson (Carroll's true name). The suggestion is made that little Alice encouraged Dodgson's fondness which led to her family forbidding any further association. In later life Alice would sell at auction an original copy of "Alice's Adventures" to pay bills. Highlights of adulthoood include an affair with the youngest son of Queen Victoria and marriage to a country gentleman.

Books to Movies...

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, By Stieg Larsson.
A mystery thriller based on Stieg Larsson’s international bestselling novel about a disgraced journalist and a troubled young female computer hacker who investigate the mysterious disappearance of an industrialist’s niece. Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed and troubled but resourceful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost 40 years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and
Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are
prepared to go to protect themselves.

Long Island Reads

"River of Doubt" By: Candice Millard

Teddy Roosevelt lived on Long Island from 1885 until his death in 1919.
The book covers a part of Teddy Roosevelt's life that is both fascinating and not well known.
The book will appeal to readers of American history, Long Island history, American Presidents, adventure stories, and travel narratives.

Historical Mystery Novels

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article highlighting great historical mystery novels. Please check our catalog for the titles.

"These historical mystery novels are superb mixtures of the scholarly and the suspenseful", says David B. Rivkin Jr.

We have 3 titles out of 5:

1. Alexandria /MKL
2. A Morbid Taste for Bones/ Interloan
3. The Emperor's Pearl/ Interloan
4. Slayer of Gods/ MKL
5. The Fire Kimono/ MKL

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week......

Johnson, Marilyn. This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybarians Can Save Us All. Harper/HarperCollins.

Should the "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" museums ever create a wing devoted to the unusual in library science this book might furnish some good starting material. One will encounter "extreme virtual librarians" assisting "patron avatars," protesters aided by "street librarians" at the 2008 Republican National Convention, and a Las Vegas "gentlemen's club" named "The Library" where the dancers wear spectacles and little else. Johnson, whose 2006 work "The Dead Beat" (also in Merrick Library's collection) dealt with obituary writing, stays close to the subject in sections of "This Book Is Overdue." There is a tribute to the late Henriette Avram who was responsible for automating the records of the Library of Congress. There is also an archivist/widow of a lyricist/ writer trying to find a library to store her husband's works until he becomes famous after death.

New York Times Literary Treat of the Week....

Hirsch, James S. Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.strong>

Long before steroids and sky-high salaries baseball's greatest players were also good will ambassadors of the sport. Leading that select club was Willie Mays who was treated as royalty in visiting ballparks. Hirsch goes into great detail about Willie's sheltered childhood in segregated post-war Alabama. Also explained is how Mays learned game smarts and the desire to win from first major league manager Leo Durocher but fortunately not "The Lip's" use of obscenity. A surprising fact is that the winds of San Fransisco's Candlestick Park most likely cost Willie Mays 100 home runs during his career with the Giants (he hit 660 of them). Those who recall or who would like to picture a time when big league ball had an air of joy to it should look no further than this welcome biography.

New Audiobook Arrivals!

His ordered life thrown into disarray when he begins treating an unstable genius artist who has recently attacked a canvas at the National Gallery of Art, psychiatrist and art hobbyist Andrew Marlowe struggles to understand the secret that torments the artist.




Heather survived the murder-suicide that claimed her parents as well as her childhood. However, when the apparent murder-suicide of another little girl's parents are ruled murders, Heather's newfound happiness is shattered.







Gossip is swirling in Jackie Collins' latest novel. Denver, Carolyn, and Annabelle were all best friends in high school. However, after growing up, Denver and Carolyn became successful and kept in touch, while Annabelle fell by the wayside. Now, through a series of coincidences, Bobby Santangelo Stanislopolous, who hung out with the gang in high school, is about to bring the group back together.





Since its inception in 1903, the Angelini Shoe Company has been a premier manufacturer of wedding shoes. Nevertheless, the 21st century has not been so kind to the company's fortune. Hoping to save the family business, the Angelini matriarch bequeaths the company to 33-year-old Valentine Roncalli. However, a budding romance and a plethora of family secrets promise to offer Valentine the challenge of her life.



In 1940, on the eve of the United States' entrance into World War II, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: she doesn't deliver a letter. In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket. She vows to deliver the letter when she returns from Germany and France where she is to report on war refugees desperately trying to escape. The residents of Franklin think the war can't touch them; but as Frankie's radio broadcasts air, some know that the war is indeed coming. And when Frankie arrives at their doorstep, the two stories collide in a way no one could have foreseen