Preview Shelf -- Adults Invited to Summer Reading Challenge

Adult patrons are signing up for "Color Your World", this year's adult summer reading program at the Crawfordsville District Public Library. Carol Bennett, Brooke Myers and the circulation staff are already busy registering readers' books. Here are more of the local businesses generously offering prizes: Ace Hardware, Bal-Hinch Scrapbooking, Chad Budreau-State Farm Insurance, Chase Bank, Creek Jewelers, Flowers 'n Things, heathcliff, Moon Dance Cafe, Papa John's Pizza, Rancho Bravo, Steak 'n Shake, and Wright Implement."The Year of Living Biblically" is A. J. Jacobs' humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible, to "be fruitful and multiply", to love his neighbor, and to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers as he travels the country. "From Eden to Exile" is Eric Cline's work unraveling mysteries of the Bible including Noah's Ark and the Ten Lost Tribes. Christopher Hitchens offers "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything". "God did not make us," he writes; "We made God." "Plain Secrets" is Joe Mackall's story as an outsider among the Amish in Ohio for 16 years, the most traditional and insular of the Amish sects, and his story of his unusual friendship and his nephew. Fascinating ideas continue. "Be the Change" by Zach Hunter is "your guide to freeing slaves and changing the world"; Zach is proving that one person can make a difference, revealed in this book. Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican!" was an assignment given by his newspaper boss and it became this interesting book so that he now speaks at universities and answers lots of mail. "Letters from the Front Lines: Iraq and Afghanistan" by Rear Admiral Stuart Platt offers 13 chapters by 13 members of our Armed Forces. TV personality Studs Terkel's memoir at age ninety-five is "Touch and Go" a review that is "youthful, vivacious, and enormous fun". Then opposite this is "The Jamestown Project" by Karen Kupperman, detailing how the settlement become the model for all successful English colonies including Plymouth. From the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living comes "Great Food Fast" from the "Everyday Food" magazine featuring 250 recipes with illustrations that make any reader hungry at any time of day. "Street Food" is Tom Kime's equally tempting trip through recipes of the "Eastern" continents. To travel by armchair, "The Rough Guide to Egypt" by Dan Richardson is a thoroughly indexed companion, and "Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day" by Philip Matyszak is a wonderful review as well as helpful pre-trip preparation.Three new books have waiting lists. "The Nine" Jeffrey Toobin's testament inside the secret world of the U. S. Supreme Court, is told through interviews of all the parties involved. "Beyond the White House" by Jimmy Carter is subtitled "Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope" and is the story of his post-presidency work for The Carter Center. Alan Greenspan's "The Age of Turbulence" is part detective story as he attempts to understand the nature of the post 9/11 world, conjecturing the world economy in 2030 from his vantage point at the Federal Reserve. Let's conclude with a few novels. In the Montana Territory of 1880 a seamstress must change her safe life in the Lori Wick novel "Cassidy". "The Courtship" by Gilbert Morris is a chase shortly after the Great Depression that requires Christian patience and trust. A father is trapped in a submarine accident, while a son is desperate to save him and a digital readout is ticking toward explosion in the Caribbean Sea during a church-couples' cruise in John Bevere's "Rescued".