Five authors with previous appearances on the list return this week with their latest releases.

At #1 is The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly: taking a break from Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch, Connelly has created a new unforgetable character with this slightly shady lawyer who takes a case and finds himself quickly in over his head.

At #2 is Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts: an arson investigator finds herself threatened by a sociopath in the latest romantic thriller by this prolific author.

Here are some of the titles available on VHS and DVD: Breast Cancer Journey, a PBS film which explores the emotional journey of 17 women who have had breast cancer; Breast Self Exam and Breast Health; Will Mom Be OK? Families Talk about Breast Cancer; and Fighting For Our Future, which features the stories of young women in their 20's and 30's battling breast cancer who are often misdiagnosed and are determined to make changes.

As heard on Talk of the Nation Science Fridays on NPR, primatologist Frans de Waal has a brand new book entitled Our Inner Ape. De Waal is part scientist and part philosopher when he urges us to reflect on non-human animals' ability to analyze, feel, and communicate.

AADL-GT: Ann Arbor District Library Game Tournaments

The action heats up this weekend, with our first-ever Open Super Smash Bros: Melee tournament, inviting all players ages 13 and up to come and fight against the best SSB:M players in the area for a shot at giftcard prizes: $40 for 1st place, $30 for 2nd, and $20 for 3rd. Doors open Friday night at 6:00 PM in the Downtown Library Multipurpose Room, and the Tournament will start after 6:30. The format will be 2 or 3 stock, 4-player battles, with all items and stages enabled, earning points for wins, with the highest scorers moving on to elimination brackets. Registration is now open.

Then, on Saturday, we've got AADL-GT Round 3, from Noon - 5 PM at the Downtown Library, including Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart Single-player and Team Events. Doors open at 11:30, and Preregistration is open now. Winners of each event advance to the Sur-Prize round,, where they'll play a MYSTERY GAME to determine who will take home the $70, $50, and $30 gift cards.

The glossy, upscale food magazine Saveur recently spotlighted Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger, the popular burger joint on Division near the U-M West Quad. The mouth-watering article by Richard Reynolds appeared in the magazine’s “Fare” section, under the headline “BLIMPY ETERNAL: A CAMPUS LEGEND KEEPS THE BURGER COMING." In the brief article, the writer recalls arriving as a student at U-M in 1962, when he says Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger was already a local institution. He traces the history, serves up some present-day Blimpy tidbits, and finally reveals: “I would walk barefoot over broken glass for my favorite: a triple-meat Blimpy cheeseburger on an onion roll with ketchup, mayo, and onions – don’t hold the juice.” You can read Reynolds’ piece in the May issue of Saveur, available from the periodicals room on the second floor of the downtown library. Just look for the cover photo of a fancy layer cake, showcasing berries, cake and tea in England - pretty much the opposite of the Blimpy experience, isn't it?

Do you really hate going to the dentist? Well, I guarantee that you don't hate it as much as Dustin Hoffman's character in The Marathon Man. Directed by John Schlesinger, who also directed Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, this thriller features one of the classic torture scenes in all of film history. After experiencing it, you'll definitely be yearning for the sound of silence.

It's that time of year again: you've made gallons of sauce, sun-dried till they were coming out of your ears, canned a batch for later, and eaten salad after salad, and there are still more tomatoes ripening on the vine. What to do?

Take a look at some of our tomato cookbooks for fresh ideas for the rest of your crop:

The Tomato Festival Cookbook
The Great Tomato Book
Lee Bailey's Tomatoes
Tomato Imperative

(And don't get me started on zucchini!)

Yesterday the National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the 2005 National Book Awards.

The finalists in the four categories are:

Fiction

E.L. Doctorow The March
Mary Gaitskill Veronica
Christopher Sorrentino Trance
Renè Steinke Holy Skirts
William T. Vollmann Europe Central

Non-fiction

Playwright Harold Pinter became the first Briton to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since 2001 when V.S. Naipaul received this most coveted honor in 2001.

It is fitting that this announcement was made today on Yom Kippur -- Pinter credits his passion and inspiration to his Jewish roots. The anti-Semitism he experienced and the bombing of London in WW II shaped many of his works.

Among this prolific writer's well known plays are The Caretaker, for which he won a Tony in 1962, The Room, The Birthday Party, and The Lover.

Several screenplays bear Pinter's name, including The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Controversy swirled around Elfriede Jelinek, last year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Knut Ahnlund, an inactive member of the Academy, resigned on October 11th because of that choice.

Pinter is 75.

Each fall, the editors at Library Journal pick a handful of extraordinary books to highlight that in general fall below the radar of the bestsellers. The one that caught my eye this fall is Ariel Levy’s “fascinating and furious critique of raunch culture”.
In Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of raunch culture., Levy, a New York magazine writer, interviewed scores of women - from teenagers, lesbian bois, to partygoers. She observed that “sex is about scoring, social status, and getting attention”, and the concept of what’s hot is promoted by the very people it suffocates.