Preview Shelf -- Holiday Library Books are Easy to Find

On the Crawfordsville District Public Library main floor the east wall has a colorful label to indicate the youth department's holiday materials, books, videos, and DVDs placed together for your convenience, and marked with a green candy cane label. Upstairs is a section collecting Christmas reading on both sides of the third set of shelves from the elevator. Here's some new fiction. Nicolas Sparks' "The Choice" is a tale about love found and lost, and the decisions we hope we'll never have to make. Doris Lessing's "The Cleft" finds an aging Roman senator telling the story of an ancient community of women living in an coastal wilderness Eden. "The White Cascade" is Gary Krist's recounting of the Great Northern Railway disaster and America's deadliest avalanche in 1910. Leslie Meier's "Bake Sale Murder" is about cul-de-sac politics and backstabbing .Susan Mallery's "Irresistible" is about romance. Debbie Macomber's "Back on Blossom Street" weaves a tale of a variety of women in a Seattle knitting class who help each other solve their personal problems. "Beautiful Dreamer" by Christopher Bigsby finds a white man trying to prevent a lynching in a small southern town, then finding himself branded by the mob."Letter from Point Clear" by Dennis McFarland is about the Alabama south, dealing with character differences and attempts to soothe them. "Code Black" by Philip Donlay is an airplane thriller. "Regatta" is Benjamin Ivry's celebration of oarsmanship for all of us who passed that way and enjoyed being part of a racing crew. Another helpful book is "Stealing Your Life" in which Frank Abagnale offers the ultimate identity theft prevention plan. "Rural Renaissance" by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist is a personal guide to the joys of country living and the statistics and resources that help. Voyage of the Turtle" by Carl Safina pursues the earth's last dinosaur. Thorsten Milse's "Little Polar Bears" is a book of photographs from the Wapusk National Park west of Hudson Bay which protects them while still allowing controlled visits to the area. Erin Williams and Margo DeMello's "Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection" puts forward the idea that making humane choices helps our whole planet. New possibilities fill "Retired with Husband: Superwoman's New Challenge" by Mary Louise Floyd. "House of Testosterone" holds Sharon O'Donnell's hilarious essays of survival as a mom in a household of males. "Hard Call" is John McCain's review of historic great decisions; some were Winston Churchill's foresight in preparing England's Navy for war, Gertrude Ederle's confidence in swimming the English Channel, Reinhold Niebuhr's humility in changing his pacifist views, and Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Betty Rollin's "Here's the Bright Side" is about the silver linings in clouds, in other words it's a funny book about surprising upsides to challenging low blows. Preacher Tony Campolo's "Letters to a Young Evangelical" argues against politically polarized and predominantly secular living. Kerry Patterson and four other authors' "Influencer: The Power to Change Anything" begins with three ideas - motivating others to change, replacing bad behaviors with powerful new skills, and making things happen. Leonard Susskind's "The Cosmic Landscape" explains his thoughts about string theory and the illusion of intelligent design. "Ancestral Trails" The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History" is Mark Herber's second helpful edition.