There are three new additions to pack for the beach or cottage on this week’s list.

At #2 is The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan: a troubled marriage is complicated even more by an unplanned pregnancy.

At #7 is The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella: the laughs begin when a lawyer flees London and her job in a high-powered law firm to work as a housekeeper in the middle of nowhere.

At #8 is No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: a gritty modern western involving drugs and stolen money.

Ann Arborites, which book do you think will get the most holds?

#10
Bill Maher’s New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer with such polite, timid musings on George W. Bush as “George Bush must stop saying he owes all his success to Laura. George Bush owes all his success to his daddy, his daddy’s friends, trust funds, legacy admissions, the National Guard, the Supreme Court, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and A.A.”

or

#13
Pennsylvania’s Senator Rick Santorum’s It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, a direct rebuttal to New York’s Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s It Takes a Village : and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. The book outlines how liberal philosophies and attempts to deal with social problems over the past forty years have failed. Senator Santorum feels we need compassionate conservatism, a policy approach that centers on family, community and church. Dr. Laura A. Schlessinger likes the book: “I am amazed at the depth and breadth of information, wisdom, and sensitivity.”

We've all come to expect our sci-fi movies to have dazzling, computer-animated special effects. However, science fiction movies have been around since long before computer animation. Stop motion animation was one way of creating special effects in those days, and Ray Harryhausen is a legend in the field. During his career, he created everything from dinosaurs to flying saucers to a giant, six-armed (due to budget constraints) octopus.

This book, edited by Laura R. Ashlee, is arranged by county and by place within the county and has the location and the text of the official Michigan Historical Markers. Of the over fourteen hundred Michigan Historical Markers dedicated since the program began in 1955 fifty-five are in Washtenaw County and fourteen are in Ann Arbor.

The markers in Ann Arbor commemorate the founding of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society in 1836; the Earhart Manor on the grounds of Concordia University; Governor Alpheus Felch (also Mayor of Ann Arbor, Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, United States Senator, and Tappan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan); the Ticknor-Campbell House (the Cobblestone Farm); Michigan’s First Jewish Cemetery Site; and nine other events, buildings, and churches.

Enjoy fantasy? Here’s one that should keep you guessing. The Cup of the World by John Dickinson is the story of 16-year-old Phaedra who is courted by a handsome, mysterious young knight who has visited her in dreams since childhood. When she finally meets the knight in the flesh, she marries him immediately, despite his family's sinister reputation for practicing black magic and his leadership of a territory on the verge of rebellion against the king. As her country descends into civil war, Phaedra discovers the dark truth about her husband's powers and must find the strength to fight for what matters most to her. Ages 14 and up. Watch for the sequel The Widow and the King.

Longtime ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings has died at the age of 67. His death reminds us of the public's fascination with the world of television news and the men and women who inhabit it. There have been several quality films that have explored the high-pressured environment of television news. The library's collection includes: Network, Broadcast News, Control Room, Outfoxed, and The Insider. Of course, if you're in the mood for something much lighter, there's always Ron Burgundy.

Summer's End by Audrey Couloumbis takes place in the summer of 1965. But it could just as well be set in the present.
12-year-old Grace is angered when her 18-year-old brother burns his draft card and takes off for Canada the day before her 13th birthday party. The party is called off and her family is thrown into turmoil.
When four generations of Grace's family gather at the family farm that summer, feelings run rampant. Two of the cousins are off to Canada, two are already in Vietnam, some older members are veterans from the Korean War. The discussions are heated, but always filled with mutual love and respect.

Just finished Nick Hornby’s latest – A Long Way Down . It’s a bit darker than About a Boy and High Fidelity, but no less engaging. That wicked sense of humor is there though you might not expect it since the plot centered around four desperate would-be jumpers who met on New Year’s Eve atop one of London’s tallest buildings.
Narrated in alternate chapters by each of these miserable souls, they recounted what led them to this fateful meeting and also subsequent events that coalesced them into some kind of surrogate family.

Starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Critic’s Choice in People Weekly. Film rights to Johnny Depp.

I am thinking Jude Law to play bad-boy Martin Sharp; definitely Toni Collette as at-the-end-of-her-rope single Mom Maureen; Evan Rachel Wood as the vulnerable, potty-mouthed Jess; and we MUST have hunky Ewan for the washed-up rocker – besides, he already knows how to ride a bike. What do you think?

Peter Jennings, longtime ABC Nightly News anchor, died August 7, after a short, determined battle against lung cancer.

Jennings, a Canadian who had dropped out of high school, was known for his ubiquitous presence at seemingly all the major breaking news events of the past two four decades, and for his extensive travels worldwide which brought the news into our living rooms. Jennings was never more front and center than when reporting on September 11th. According to today’s New York Times, “[Jennings] would spend more than 60 hours on the air in what Tom Shales of The Washington Post, among other critics, praised as a tour de force of interviewing and explanatory broadcast journalism laced with undisguised bewilderment.”

Opening The Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan gave established movie actor Jeff Daniels the opportunity to create a professional theatre company, featuring Midwestern actors, directors, designers and playwrights. Playing there through September 24 is a play by author and columnist Mitch Albom, And the Winner Is. It is directed by PRTC Artistic Director Guy Sanville.

Jenn McKee of the Ann Arbor News says that the play "...takes on considerable emotional heft and poignancy, and Albom achieves a fitting end that is simultaneously inevitable and surprising. Albom also, throughout the play, offers up a good deal of bright, cynical humor... “