Abbey Road by Alistair Lawrence

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

I came across this book when one of my pages gave it to me and said, "This book doesn't fit on the shelf."  It really doesn't because it belongs on a coffee table, to be looked at leisurely.  It is a big beautiful awkward book to be shoved on a shelf!  So someone check it out to read!  If you love music it is very entertaining.

Abbey Road studios have been on the cutting edge of recording for eighty years, hosting some of the biggest names in music over the decades: the Beatles, of course, who immortalized it with the title of their 1969 album; Pink Floyd; Kate Bush; Duran Duran; Radiohead; Florence and the Machine. Any number of albums made here have gone gold or platinum, picking up Grammys and other awards along the way. Famed producers and sound engineers at the studios have developed groundbreaking new techniques, including automatic double tracking at the instigation of John Lennon. And it's also been a landmark in moviemaking: here were recorded John Williams's original scores for five Star Wars films, as well the scores for the Lord of the Rings trilogy--two of them awarded Oscars. This gorgeous book includes a full history and time line, facts and figures, a discography with famous album covers from the 1930s to now, and a wealth of never-before-seen photos and treasures from the studio's own archive. It's an incredible document of cultural history, for anyone who values music and how it's made.

The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

Because of the huge winter storm that came through Northwest Indiana this week, I figured it was the perfect time to read about the blizzard of January 12^th, 1888. It took place in Dakota and Nebraska, and killed between a few hundred and a thousand people, especially school children, who were often on their way home when the blinding snow and below-zero temps descended on the Plains.

David Laskin’s “The Children’s Blizzard” details that horrible episode in US history, and instead of laying blame on the national weather service (which didn’t exist at the time), he shows why the “Signal Corps” which predicted the weather back then failed to predict much of anything. Laskin shows how the person most often blamed for failing to warn people, Lieutenant Woodruff, was just an honest man caught in the infighting taking place between college professors and governmental opportunists, none of whom could really predict the weather at all. From information given, it shows that Woodruff had actually made inroads into understanding how a polar vortex could come from Canada to kill school kids in the Plains. He also understood what lower barometric pressures indicated, and how cold and warm fronts interacted, even though fronts would not even be named for another 30 years. So Laskin details the early history of meteorology, and the nature of global weather itself, although at times those paragraphs were really hard to get through.

More entertaining for me were the stories of the school kids and their families, which often included why those families left Europe to come to the settle on free farmland in the Plains. These stories were easy to read, and engaging emotionally, as I read hoping against hope that certain children would live through the storm. Laskin definitely sees the big picture, as he linked the whole tragedy to the greed of various wealthy and often unscrupulous businessmen (namely those running railroads) who wanted to make money from passengers and therefore advertised this second Eden in Europe, despite the fact that running a successful farm on the American Plains was never a sure thing. We know that 100+ years later, but in the 1880s, many people thought success was simply a matter of hard work and stick-to-it-iveness, which sadly, it was not.

It is obvious through the passage of time to see how the tragedy occurred, and how the death of so many children was the perfect storm of meteorology in its infancy, and an immigrant populous with little experience of the Plain’s vicious weather. But like any tragedy, so much turns on the decision of the moment - parents who refused to let children go to school that day, children who ran outside when they should have stayed inside the safe and warm school buildings - but the true message is that so much is random, and no one could predict that morning which decisions would mean life or death. I did, however, learn a lot about hypothermia from this book, and reading it scared me enough about freezing cold and snow to keep me off the roads during yesterday’s blizzard!

There's More to Life Than This by Theresa Caputo

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

Brassy Hicksville-native Theresa Caputo has become famous as the Long Island Medium, and not only has a TV show with that name, but also tours the country giving psychic readings, and was recently in Merrillville doing the same.

I’ll say first that I am a fan of the show, and did want to buy tickets for her performance at the Radisson Star Plaza, but was ultimately unable to do so. I picked up the book as I have always been a believer in “the other side”, but my father’s death last year and the passing of a number of other beloved relatives and friends in 2013 had me searching for a little more confirmation about that.

This book heartily supplies that confirmation for me. Caputo starts the book discussing her early life and how hard it was to make peace and understand the gift of channeling the voices of the departed. It was very believable to me that as a young person, such images and messages would be hard to integrate into her life, even for her family and friends. Finally she meets someone who can help her accept and fine-tune her gift, and then she becomes the Theresa Caputo so many people recognize and love. The book is written in that unmistakable voice of hers and includes moments of her irreverent and unexpected humor as well.

But this book is more than a mere biography, and more than a listing of the successful readings she has had with people. Caputo works to examine larger issues for her readers – why she sees a Christian God when she channels, what happens to children who die, and whether many of us are given signs from beyond that we simply fail to see because they are not what we are expecting.

Even more heartening for people who have lost loved ones, Caputo maintains that those who die (not matter how) are always happy as they wait for the chance to return to earth in another form. This sounds more like Hinduism than it does Catholic doctrine, but Caputo is undeterred. She says family groups tend to go through life cycles together again and again, so in theory my father who passed will be reborn as my grandchild in 20 years or so. The people we loved apparently wait in “heaven” until they find a family they want to reconnect with, and come back to earth to learn a virtue they failed to grasp in their last life.

That is strangely comforting, as is her contention that our pets are also in “heaven”, and that sometimes our pets channel messages from those we love as well, since they are more psychically attuned. Yes, I’ll grant that for those who don’t believe it all sounds a bit mad. But for those of us who want to believe “there is more to life than this” (her title), Caputo’s book hits just the right note, and although I won’t buy a copy (sorry, Theresa!) I recommend those who need comfort after losing a loved one to find it in this book, whether it’s bunk or not.

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

I have read several books by Malcolm Gladwell already, including “Tipping Point,” “Blink”, “Outliers,” and “What the Dog Saw.” In short, he’s been one of my favorite authors for years now. Several of those books (including “Outliers” and “Blink”) were downright brilliant, so it was with great expectations that I picked up his newest, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants.” Sadly, it does not live up to the brilliance of some of those earlier works.

As the title might indicate, “David and Goliath” is the story of how improbably one-sided battles can be won by the underdog, how disadvantages can turn out to be advantages. And like many of his books, it includes research and interviews with people who are living examples of the point he is trying to make.

His first story involves why David beat Goliath. This is a famous story from the Bible, in which a shepherd boy goes against a giant war hero who makes even other soldiers tremble, and wins the day with his slingshot and several well-chosen rocks. Gladwell shows how despite appearances, it was Goliath who was at a disadvantage in this battle, due to his acromegaly and poor eyesight. But the point really is that David won by changing the rules. Goliath was only good at hand-to-hand combat, but David using the slingshot to fight him changed the rules enough to insure his success.

Likewise, Gladwell shows how having dyslexia or losing a parent as a child can make a person either a brilliant success or a pathetic failure. Using examples like Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, and several presidents (including Barack Obama), Gladwell demonstrates how these perceived disadvantages made these men work harder and find tricks and shortcuts that allowed them to succeed. It’s a subject he’s touched on before – how 10,000 hours of hard work and not natural talent can make one an expert at something. And since these men spent so much time overcoming obstacles, they became more capable than those who had never had to face obstacles before.

This would be good book for teachers and school administrators as it talks about the value of small class sizes (of lack thereof), but all of Gladwell’s books have clues about how teachers and schools can make students, even the most disadvantaged among them, succeed. Still this work left me strangely unaffected, despite Gladwell’s easy-to-read style and interesting subject matter. The lessons learned from it are also unarguably valid – work harder to succeed, change the rules if you can’t win the game as it’s typically played, and find out what advantage your disadvantages give you. And while it’s fun learning the true story behind a classic Bible battle, and the struggles of iconic leaders like Lawrence of Arabia and Martin Luther King Jr., I would recommend reading “Outliers”, “Blink” and “Tipping Point” before picking up this latest Gladwell book.

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
Submitted by Gerti

I read this book because the story behind the Essex tragedy is what inspired author Herman Melville to write the classic "Moby Dick," read grudgingly by every American high school student.  I have also read that book, and despite the larger themes and leitmotif's-whatever-this is a far better and more interesting account of the matter.

Author Nataniel Philbrick comes from a family of intellectuals who have been inspired by tales of watery daring-do for several generations now.  But given that fine nautical pedigree, Philbrick scores in this book for me by having access to two accounts of the Essex tragedy-the original account published in the 1820's by First Mate Owen Chase, which inspired Melville, but also a newly found recounting by the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, which adds much to the story.

The basics-the Nantucket based whaleship Essex was sunk by an enormous sperm whale which rammed into it twice.  That incident alone made it fairly unique among whalers of that time, who weren't used to prey fighting back.  But what adds pathos to the account is that after the ship was sunk, the survivors made every wrong decision they could have made: heading off in the wrong direction, going east toward South America against prevailing winds instead of west, toward Tahiti; not lashing the 3 lifeboats together and hence wasting time looking for other survivors and backtracking to find them; not taking all the food available from the wreck (tortoises from the Galapagos Islands) when they had the chance, and therefore having to resort to cannibalism to get meat to survive.

Beyond the story, though, the author has researched several subjects which add to the depth of the reader's understanding.  He has access to modern medical information about the nature of starvation, and therefore is able to draw some conclusions about what the crewman actually went through during their long weeks at sea.  He looks at whether racism played a role in the survivors (many of them Quakers) cannibalizing black crew members, who died first.  He understands the strong bond between the crewman who came from off-island versus those who hailed from Nantucket, and explains why that group had the highest number of survivors.  Best of all Philbrick doesn't really pass judgement as much as he brilliantly profiles those sad fellows who were forced to live through more than average people have to, in terms of physical endurance, moral compunction and psychological stresses, and draws clearly understandable portraits that a modern audience of non-seafarers can grasp.

Finally, he looks at the survivors, and how they carried on after going through so much.  Were they able to summon the strength to succeed?  You'll have to read to find out, but oh gentle reader!  It's such a worthwhile journey! I loved this book!

Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger and Kenneth Cukier

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

If you want to know what this book is about, you have to read the reviews on the back cover, as they are brilliant summaries of what the notion of "Big Data" encompasses.  They include blurbs from Marc Benioff, the chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, a major American computer company, and Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor.  The quote I like the best, though, is from a person named Clay Shirky, who says, "Just as water is wet in a way that individual water molecules aren't, big data can reveal information in a way  that individual bits of data can't."  that clarifies things for my non-scientific mind.

It was not an easy book to read, as I'm not a computer science major, or even someone who's read a computer textbook before.  But it is fascinating, as it brings into focus how computers and the information they crunch are effecting personal privacy and our understanding of life in general.  The first example of Big Data the two authors use is how Google knew about what areas of the US were being hit by a flu outbreak, based on what their users were searching for.  I'm not bothered by Google holding on to that information if the result is potentially a way the government and its health organizations can keep track of the spread of a disease.  However, the authors here highlight the darker side of that information-that knowing who looks up flu might someday lead Google to telling the government which people should be quarantined, especially if we ever ran across a "black plague" type situation.  This happens in horror movies about zombies, where sometimes healthy people are held back with the infected ones, and while that is obviously scary, it is clearly fictional.  This book implies that a similar situation, involving a very real disease outbreak, could well occur, especially if someone is watching what you search for on your computer or listening to what you say on your cell phone.

I like how the pair of authors point to examples where government information gathering has been used in negative ways even in the past, for example, how Census data helped the US government put Japanese citizens into internment camps during World War II.  But the two men also show the upside of gathering Big Data-how companies like Amazon show you what books you might be interested in buying today based on your past purchases.  I was just pleased today at how E-Bay was doing the same think for me when I logged in this morning.

Is it worth reading?  Yes-I will even purchase it for my home library.  I also hope to buy a few extra copies for friends of mine who work in the computer industry, as the book points out some lucrative "Big Data" job opportunities in the near future.  But like the authors, I also worry about how the vast collections of personal information may someday effect our lives in a negative way.

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

With a title like that, how could I refuse this book?  I did not know that Lincoln's mother had been killed by a weed found on their Indiana farm!  But I also didn't know that one of the boys in my daughters school could get his hands ruined (and miss a school trip!) because he had been squeezing limes, and then went out in the sun.  It's in here, too!  And I thought I had it bad when I had to cut onions!

I won't call this a good book, but "Wicked Plants" is a book full of strange and unusual facts that if you are anything like me, you won't know about plants either.  I like that the plants are arranged alphabetically, and that there is a tab on the upper right corner of the page that indicates whether a plant fits categories, like "deadly" or "illegal."  My only quibble is that there are no actual full color pictures of plants, but instead drawings of the plants, which make it hard to distinguish scale and color.  I wouldn't want to try to identify poison ivy based on one of these drawings!

I am also but off by the collection of really bizarre pictures in the book that I can't even quantify. Perhaps they only occur in the chapters on illegal and psychedelic plants, but they are disturbing to say the least.  People with leaves growing out of their head are the mildest form.  Others have limbs growing out of other places, and it's just plain weird.  Despite their obvious artistic merit, I would have preferred a nice glossy photo of what the plant and its variations really look like than either the botanical illustrations or trippy etchings.

Is it worth reading? Yes, it's probably even worth purchasing for the home library, since it talks about how dangerous your carrots, limes, and potatoes can be, as well as those lovey things that grow out in the garden called flowers.  I think it's good information to have if you have kids or pets who could be hurt by eating things you didn't even know were dangerous, and therefore planted in your yard or flower box for their pretty color or smell.  Frankly, I was astonished by how many plants are "wicked," as author Amy Stewart call them.  As she says in her intro, I naively thought the natural world was benign, but it is downright scary out there!  This book makes me glad that I spend most of my time indoors!

Let's Get This Party Started by Soleil Moon Frye

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(4 out of 5)

You know that this is going to be a fun book when it is written by Punky Brewster!    Soleil Moon Frye doesn't disappoint.  I think I oh'ed and ah'ed over every page.  Her party ideas are fun, affordable, and they can be adapted for library programs.  I absolutely loved all the color pictures.  Most of you know I love my picture books!

If you are looking for new ideas for party planning check this book out!

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

As you might expect from an author whose name means “holy man” in German, Deborah Heiligman has written an account of what religion meant in the life of a very famous man - Charles Darwin. For those who don’t know, he was the British naturalist who came up with the “survival of the fittest” concept of evolution, and hence butted heads with those who were more comfortable with the creation story in the Bible, where God created everything that ever lived. This book spends most of its time dealing with that dilemma in Darwin’s life.

But the method this book uses to examine the gulf between Darwin’s theories and commonly held religious beliefs in the 1800s is to examine the relationship between Darwin and his wife Emma, who was far more religious than her husband. Heiligman’s book details the Darwin’s many children and their happy family life. And it shows how the death of the couple’s favorite child, Annie, challenged Emma’s belief in heaven and killed Charles’ entirely. More important in regards to his scientific contributions, it details what influenced Darwin to make his great leap of thought – including his voyage on the HMS Beagle and the Thomas Robert Malthus’ essay on human population growth and decline that Darwin thought might explain the growth and decline of plant and animal species as well. The book even shows the influence Darwin had on popular culture – from the cartoons that lampoon the relationship between monkeys and humans, to the novel “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell where the hero was modeled after Darwin.

I found the book interesting, as it humanizes the iconic figure, showing how worried Darwin was about releasing “The Origin of Species” before it was perfect, and how he dealt with public and private opposition to his theory, as well as to closely-related rival theories. The text delves into his many fascinations – with bugs, birds, for example, and explains what might seem a mystery for modern people - why he was able to spend so much time being a naturalist (his family was related to the rich and famous Wedgwoods.) It also lists Darwin’s many illnesses, and shows how hard he had to work to overcome his frequent bouts with headaches and intestinal distress in order to research and write his many books (and journals).

So the book taught me more about Darwin the man than a simple biography would have. But my criticism is that, at times, the author’s need to link religion to a particular moment in Darwin’s life felt forced, although I understand that she wanted to make this more than an “ordinary” biography. Yet, even with that issue, the book is worth reading if you have any interest in the life of this ordinary man with an extraordinary mind.

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

Dad is not only fat, he is FUNNY, which is no surprise given that the author is Chesterton native Jim Gaffigan. In this comic look at parenthood, the LaLumiere graduate writes with wit and humor about how a child from northern Indiana ends up living in a two-bedroom New York apartment with a wife and five children.

I requested the book after seeing Gaffigan during his latest appearance at the Radisson theater in Merrillville. During his lengthy show, I could barely catch my breath for laughing, especially as some of his humor deals with what it’s like to live here in the region. While not as funny as seeing him in person (tone of voice, and let’s face it, his unique look, add a lot to the jokes), I thoroughly enjoyed his riffs on what it’s like taking care of pale children, going to restaurants with kids, and trying to get the kids to sleep. My kids are already teenagers, so those crazy sleep-deprived days of infants and cribs are far behind me, but his writing was evocative enough to remind me of what I wasn’t really missing. He has some sharp commentary on family gatherings, and on how the enthusiasm among his friends for his growing family has dimmed with each addition. The drawings and photographs that accompany the text are also exceptionally funny.

While I can’t relate to living in NY, anyone with kids will be able to sympathize with Gaffigan as he tries to survive the hurdles of having kids in different schools, different parenting styles, and trying to get through family vacations and holiday gatherings. I love his self-deprecating humor, and while not as funny as seeing him live, “Dad is Fat” was a welcome, well-paced diversion while I was waiting for my own kids to finish their sporting practice and music lessons.

The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction

Submitted by Gerti

Like Sam Kean's earlier work, "The Disappearing Spoon," "The Violinist's Thumb" was brilliant and exhausting all at once!  Much harder to read than his earlier work on the stories behind all the elements, this book deals with DNA and its history, touching on various scientist and their struggles to define what makes us human, and what makes us able to produce other humans with similar traits!  If that sounds sexy, it's not, although Kean uses as much humor as he can muster to turn this muddy sledding through hard science into a joy ride.  I had heard about Gregor Mendel like every American high school graduate, but the truth being figuring out what turned my brown eyes blue is a lot more complicated than that fairy tale!

As in his previous work, Kean's strength lies in his ability to humanize scientists like Mendel, Watson and Crick, and to make them not only geniuses of the first order, but also incredibly fragile and fallible human beings, who have to deal with office politics, economics and jealous co-workers the same as the res of us.  Personally, I was thrilled to know that women scientists played a large role in the discovery and understanding of genetics, and have subsequently taken out other books (which I haven't read yet!) to get to know those people better.

This is a book that will give you a thrill a chapter, but you as the reader will have to work hard for it.  There were many times when I finished a chapter, and wanted to rush out and research the topic Kean had discussed.  I even ended up telling some of the stories to my kids in the car on the way to school--which is pretty crazy, since it was stories about Neanderthal man!  More than a book by Crichton or Cook, I felt this author really understood the science he was writing about, but since he didn't dummy things down, there were times when I struggled to keep up both with concepts and specific facts.  I feel much richer for having read this book, which like his previous work is a fascinating but difficult journey through the history of scientific discoveries.  But unlike the last book, with this account I'm willing to admit to Kean (or anyone else!) that he is smarter than am I, because there are still some concepts here that I do not grasp.

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and their World by Hugh Brewster

My sister has a new favorite word, "meh", and that word is precisely how I feel after having finished this book "Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage" by Hugh Brewster. While discussion of the sinking of the luxury liner Titanic on her maiden voyage is always interesting, this book seems to drag with facts and therefore loses much of the drama of the episode.

I have no doubt that this book is exhaustively researched, and that every fact listed herein is accurate, but I have both read and seen other works that are far more engaging to me as a reader/viewer. The movies "A Night to Remember" and James Cameron's "Titanic" come to mind instantly, but even a made-for-TV
movie that was on just this year was more compelling than this book, and it was complete rubbish.

"Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage" reminds me of how author Hugh Brewster describes a book written by a man lost in the tragedy; Archibald Gracie IV apparently wrote a book about the battle of Chickamauga that was so weighed down in facts, that it bored even those who has been in the Civil War battle and might have been
especially interested in the subject matter. To me, this book has the same feel, leaving me as the reader drowning in facts when what I was really hungering for some human drama.

Submitted by Max

Pure Vanilla by Shauna Sever

If you are a big fan of vanilla you should check this book out.  She has cake, cookie, pie, drink, and many more recipes to choose from.  I decided on trying the Salted Vanilla Chip Oatmeal Cookies on page 89.  I skipped the salt and I used white chocolate chips instead of chunk chocolate but they turned out so good. 

Salted Vanilla Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Printer Friendly Version


3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 TBS pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed (I used light)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
8 ounces white chocolate, chopped (I used chocolate chips)
2 TBS Vanilla Fleur de Sel, (page 90) for sprinkling (I didn't use)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, and salt.  In a bowl beat together the butter and vanilla until creamy.  Add in the sugars and beat until fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add oat mixture, then white chocolate.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.  Scoop batter, 2 tablespoons at a time, onto prepared baking sheets, about 8 cookies to a sheet.  Sprinkle with salt if using.  Bake cookies until golden brown around the edges but still soft in the centers, 12 to 14 minutes.  Let cookies cool on sheets for 2 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Crazy About Cakes by Krystina Castella

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(5 out of 5)

Oh yum, does this book have some delicious looking cake recipes in it!  I wish they had smelly things on the page so you could take a big whiff.  When I first saw this book I knew I had to try and make those incredible looking German chocolate bars on the front.  I did the semi homemade way but they turned out super delish.  I can't wait to try out some of her other yummy treats.  Like root beer float cake in a mug.  Yes, please I love anything made cute in a glass or a jar and I love me some root beer floats.  Irish cream cakes in chocolate cups.  The little chocolate cups are just darling.  There are so many other fun cakes in here, like chocolate truffle cakes.  Perfect for Valentines Day that is just a few days away.  You have to see her precious little bunny cakes.  Too cute for words.  Almost too cute to eat, almost!

If you love cake as much as do, check out this book today.

Eat More of What you Love by Marlene Koch

Don't you wish you could just pull the food right off the page?  Some of this stuff just looks so good!  What makes this cookbook a plus is that all Ms. Koch's recipes are healthy.  She has trimmed off the calories and the fat on all our favorite recipes without sacrificing the taste.  How great is that? 

I can't wait to try: Strawberry Cheesecake Pancake Stacks (pg. 90), coconut coconut shrimp (pg. 107), Knife & Fork Chicken Caesar "Salad" Sandwich (pg. 133), Chicken Enchilada Bake (pg. 254), and Impossible Cheesecake Pie (pg. 289).

What will you try first?

Ten Dollar Dinners by Melissa d'Arabian

I'm not sure if I have an unhealthy obsession with cookbooks or a healthy one!  I love cookbooks.  I probably have over 100 at home.  In order to curb my obsession and be nice to be wallet I try and preview the cookbooks first by checking them out at the library. 

I didn't watch the season that Ms. d'Abrian was on The Next Food Network star but I can see why she won.  Her food all looks really yummy and it isn't that complicated to make.  I hate when a recipe sounds really good and then you have have 20 ingrediants to buy and you don't know what half of them are.

I tried her chicken meatball recipe (pg. 161) and they were really good.  I can't wait to try her creamy any veggie soup (pg. 74) and chicken taquitos (pg.165), and shrimp pad Thai (pg. 118).  Let's not forget about dessert!  Her buttery shortbread (pg. 309) and the double chocolate pound cake (pg. 304) are calling my name.  This is one cookbook I may just have to add to my personal collection!

Brainiac by Ken Jennings

I picked up this book based on a good review from a quizzer friend of mine whose son and my son go to school together. I was interested in "Brainiac" 
because I had already taken the "Jeopardy!" Test in Chicago, and had this odd feeling, since "Jeopardy!" was having more female contestants on, that I just 
might need to know more about the quiz show world ... 

Author Ken Jennings, for those who do not follow" Jeopardy!" closely, was a contestant on the popular Sony quiz show who a few years ago won more games 
than anyone else in "Jeopardy!" history. For the record, he won 74 games, although he took part in 75. And it's just that sort of minutia with which this book concerns itself. 

Ken was always someone who loved trivia, so while the book recounts his time on the "Jeopardy!" stage, it also shows how a game show like "Jeopardy!" came 
to be. Jennings details the history of trivia itself, and then progresses to radio and TV game shows, of course mentioning the "Twenty-One" scandal back in the '50s that showed how some contestants were getting the correct answers to questions by producers who viewed the genre as more entertainment than was legally allowed. 

Ken also visits with other gamers who play in various circuits around the country, from the trivia tourneys played in our nation's bars, to college quiz bowls of various stripes, and finally to die-hard fans at the annual trivia fest that takes place in a small Wisconsin town. While I found the most interesting part of the book to be the information on Jennings' "Jeopardy!" winning streak, his writing is always entertaining, and his facts are bottomless. "Brainiac" was an always amusing and frequently educational look at a part of Americana that I had never seen before, but is slowly becoming more interesting to me. And hopefully, this book will help when I play the game! 

Submitted by Gerti 

Heartland Serial Killers by Richard C. Lindberg

While I've never read anything else by this author, this book seemed to be a well-researched look at 2 serial killers of a bygone era, including La Porte's own Belle Gunness. I decided to read this book because the Lake County Public Library doesn't have a recent documentary made about her, or a lending copy of another book written solely about the lady serial killer.

Let's start with Johann Hoch. He was a not very attractive man of German extraction who used the 
German newspapers, which were popular in Chicago at the turn of the century, in order to lure wealthy women to his marriage bed. How long he stayed married to them was the question. For some, it seemed only a few hours before he was off on the next train to the next town, with their life savings. Sadly, these were the lucky ones. More than a dozen, whom he stayed married to longer, became the victims of what the author thinks was arsenic poisoning. While the book does not contain any gory pictures of Hoch's matrimonial victims, it does contain a long list of the women he bilked and/or killed. He never seemed to attain the notoriety of another serial killer working in Chicago at roughly the same time,HH Holmes,but Hoch is nontheless made out to be a thoroughly despicable human being. Thankfully, he was caught by Chicago police and executed. 

Belle Gunness is another matter altogether when it comes to "justice served." Although she used pretty much the same method to lure her victims - she put ads in Scandinavian papers to get single men to come to her farm, she stayed in one place, like a black widow spider, and then disposed of her victims when they arrived at her farm. Of course, she kept whatever money and goods they may have brought along with them. She used her wealth to lure these fellows - she 
had a farm and was looking for help, and supposedly love. The book contains a letter she wrote to one of her suitors, which is a fascinating look at how she tried to sweet talk these poor victims out to her farm. Details on her crimes, how she dissected the men like animals and then stuck them in lime, or just buried them under buildings, or even fed them to her superfat chickens{!), are 
particularly gruesome. There is a graphic photo of her last victim, whose brother coming to track him down put a stop to the whole Gunness "murder for profif game. The Gunness story doesn't end well, however, as her farm burns down before police could investigate, and the headless{!) female body found in the ashes didn't fit her physical description. The book therefore details rumors about where she allegedly fled, who the body in the fire was, and asks the question of whether Belle Gunness was the real identity of one of the murderous duo of ladies working on the west coast, later known on film as "Arsenlc and Old Lace." 

In summary, this is an interesting non-fiction book about two really terrible human beings, and the sad, lonely people on whom they preyed in the old days. These killings were a function of their time, and thankfully with the advent of social security numbers and better media communication, nothing as terrible as this could happen in the United States today. 

Submitted by Gerti 

5 Ingredient Favorites by Rachel Lane

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(5 out of 5)

I am always on the look out for easy recipes.  I love to cook but that doesn't mean I want to slave away in the kitchen.  I love recipes that have 5 ingredients or less.  This cookbooks is full of over 140 delicious sounding recipes.

Chocolate Banana Smoothie pg 18 sounds yummy, Cheese and Sweet Potato Pasties pg 22 look yummo, Spicy Chicken Fried Rice pg 146 looks oh so good, and the Apple Turnovers pg 312 look just right for fall.

Seriously need to stop it with the cookbooks.  My stomach is growling! :)

Check out this book!

Muffin Tin Chef by Matt Kadey

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(5 out of 5)

I love using my muffin tin to cook.  I make lasagna cupcakes, taco cupcakes, sausage and egg cupcakes, baked oatmeal muffins, I think you get the idea.  So I was super excited to see that the library got this cookbook.

Bacon and eggs pg 18, Extra Moist Chocolate Cakes pg 122, Mini Macaroni and Cheese pg 70, and Spinach Dip Bowls pg 48.  Yum, Yum!

Come and check out this book!