School Library Journal (November 1, 2003; 0-439-43536-6) Gr 4-8
In this accessible, almost-cinematic fantasy, Gregor and his two-year-old sister fall into an amazing underground world. Taken in by people who have lived beneath the earth for centuries, the 11-year-old learns about the giant-sized talking creatures that also reside there, including bats, cockroaches, and vicious rats. Gregor just wants to get home, but a prophecy hints that he may be the "overlander" destined to save the humans from the warlike rodents. He is reluctant until he learns that his father, who disappeared from their New York City home a few years before, is a prisoner of the rats. Gregor is not an eager hero, but with common sense, quick thinking, and determination he grows into the role. His sister, who provides some comic relief, also plays a key part because of her ability to befriend creatures, especially the giant cockroaches. Plot threads unwind smoothly, and the pace of the book is just right. Exciting scenes and cliff-hanger chapters are balanced by decisions and interactions that drive the action. Gregor is not the most compelling figure at first, but as the story progresses he becomes more interesting, maturing through the challenges he faces. Supporting characters are generally engaging, particularly the enigmatic warrior rat that claims to support the protagonist's mission. This is an engrossing adventure for fantasy fans and for those new to the genre.-Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly starred (September 8, 2003; 0-439-43536-6)
In a cavernous world beneath New York City, humans who long ago emigrated from the "Overland" live side-by-side with super-intelligent bats and loyal giant cockroaches. In a charming tip of the literary hat, debut novelist Collins introduces her young heroes Gregor and his little sister Boots into a wonderland through a trip down a long hole-in this case, an opening in a wall of their apartment building's laundry room. While passionately trying to find a way back home, 11-year-old Gregor learns about the Underlanders, their history and their unusual customs. Before long, Vikus, the noble patriarch of the Underlanders, reveals to Gregor an ancient prophecy-and why he believes that the boy is the foretold "overland warrior," come to liberate them from the giant rats. The relationship between Gregor and two-year-old Boots embodies much of the book's charm, and Gregor himself grows up before readers' eyes. His love for his lost father factors heavily into his personality; in a stunning turn of events, he discovers the reason for the disappearance of his father-who also plays a role in the prophecy. Collins does a grand job of world-building, with a fine economy of words-no unnecessary details bog down either the setting or the invigorating story. In her world, a child singing "Patty-Cake" can change the course of history and a stoic rat can mourn the fact that although he is able to read, he cannot write because he has no thumb. Unlike Gregor who cannot wait to leave, readers will likely find it to be a fantastically engaging place. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


Reviews of GREGOR AND THE PROPHECY OF BANE:
Kirkus AUGUST 01, 2004
When giant cockroaches kidnap his baby sister Boots from Central Park, Gregor knows that he has no choice but to descend to the Underland to find her. Readers will eagerly remember what Gregor has tried to forget: that at the end of Gregor the Overlander (2003), the fey Nerissa had hinted at the Prophecy of Bane. Bane, it appears, is a giant white rat, one whose coming portends the end of the delicate balance of power in the Underland; Gregor is prophesied to be the end of Bane, but not if the rats get Boots first. Collins crafts another edge-of-the-seat quest; a race between Gregor and the rats reunites the boy with Queen Luxa and with Ares, his new bat-bond. Humor and terror alternate, as the third-person narration (heavily flavored by the voice of 11-year-old Gregor) details the bickering brought on by close quarters and then unflinchingly throws the questers into mortal danger. Gregor's resolution of the prophecy will surprise and delight readers—who will be equally delighted to see that Nerissa has packed a new prophecy in Gregor's luggage when he returns home. Yessss! (Fiction. 9-14)

School Library Journal October 1, 2004 Gr 5-8
Readers are quickly drawn into this sequel to Gregor the Overlander (Scholastic, 2003), which concluded with Gregor and his toddler sister, Boots, returning from the Underland, an underground realm populated by humans and giant creatures. When Boots is kidnapped and taken back to the Underland, Gregor follows her to the city of Regalia, where he is reunited with Luxa and her wise grandfather. Vikus tells the boy of the "Prophecy of Bane," which foretold of Gregor's return to the land to find and fight a legendary white super-rat. The siblings are joined by Luxa and other humans, as well as giant talking bats and cockroaches, in the quest to find the Bane. As in the first book, the questers face adventure, danger, death, loss, and change on their journey, and the surprising conclusion leaves room for another sequel. Interpersonal conflict and old enmities among the well-developed characters add depth, and the hazards and beauties of the subterranean Underland are fully realized and clearly presented. An urgent mood and a sense of impending danger are conveyed. This is a strong choice for fantasy fans, including reluctant readers, even if they're not familiar with Gregor's first adventure.-Beth L. Meister, Yeshiva of Central Queens, Flushing, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Booklist September 1, 2004 Gr. 4-8.
In this exciting, fast-paced sequel to Gregor the Overlander BKL O 15 03, 11-year-old Gregor and his little sister, Boots, return to the Underland to battle the evil giant rats, which have conspired to kill Boots in order to destroy Gregor, their primary obstacle to conquering all the Underland. To save his sister, Gregor sails across a subterranean sea with his bat and cockroach allies to find and kill the prophesied rat leader of the Underland war. Most of the action takes place on the water, including a memorable battle with a sea serpent, and there are plenty of suspenseful moments and exciting developments. Gregor, of course, is courageous, selfless, and ultimately triumphant. Readers unfamiliar with the first novel will be at a disadvantage; Collins assumes knowledge of the characters and developments from the first book. But fans will not be disappointed with this exciting, action-packed sequel, whose ending suggests more adventures to come. --Ed Sullivan Copyright 2004 Booklist
Publishers Weekly (August 16, 2004 In the second title in the Underland Chronicles series, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins, Gregor returns to the world beneath New York City, seeking his young sister, Boots, who has been kidnapped by giant cockroaches that are trying to protect her from murderous rats. PW said of Gregor the Overlander, "Collins does a grand job of world-building.... Unlike Gregor who cannot wait to leave, readers will likely find it to be a fantastically engaging place." Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling : Career Strategies for Asians
跨越職場藩籬 : 亞洲人的教戰守策
- by Jane Hyun

CHANGE @ WORK
Retooling the Asian image
Patricia Kitchen
Change@work

May 1, 2005

Jane Hyun remembers wondering back when she was first starting her business career just what was up with her young colleagues. While she had her nose to the grindstone, they were "wasting time" - about 15 percent of the day, she figured, going to lunch and conversing with the boss.

Actually, she came to learn, that's what's called "building rapport," a critical element in career success, she told members of the student-run Asian Business Society gathered the other night at New York University's Stern School of Business. "It's not just about technical proficiency," said Hyun, a diversity strategist and executive coach in Manhattan. In fact, as you rise up the ranks, that counts for less, and relationship-building and your "influence at the table" count for far more.

When she asked the group to toss out some key leadership qualities, students responded with: presence, charisma, decisiveness, vision. "Look," she said. "No one mentioned 'crunches numbers well' or 'meets deadlines.'"

We all need to learn these unspoken rules of the game, she says, especially many Asians - those who were raised with what she calls "Confucian influences" such as the need to maintain harmony, work hard to the exclusion of other activities, respect authority at all cost, honor duty over personal feelings and keep from standing out from the crowd. These and others are outlined in her new book, "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians" (Harper Business, $24.95).

If not counterbalanced, she says, such influences can be "self-limiting" in a Western workplace, where often just the opposite is valued. And that was her mission with the group: to point out the disconnects and offer strategies to develop what she calls "cultural literacy" for working in a more free-for-all type of environment.

Two mottoes tell it all, she told the business school students: the Eastern one that says, "The loudest duck gets shot" and the Western one saying, "The squeaky wheel gets the oil."

She can certainly point to a multitude of Asian-Americans who are excelling in this country. But success stories can mask issues faced by what she calls the "model minority" image. In her days as a human resources manager for a large financial firm, she says, she saw plenty of Asians being hired, but not so many sticking around. And as for those who reach the executive level, back in 2002 only 30 Asian women held senior-level executive positions at Fortune 500 companies. That was less than one-third of one percent of those top jobs, according to Catalyst, a Manhattan-based research and educational group.

Though bosses certainly have to improve retention, she said that employees also have to develop strategies for getting ahead. Among the skills she says she's found helpful for many Asians to develop are public speaking, meeting "faciliation" (running the show), supervision and conflict resolution.

To get her points across, she broke the group into smaller teams and asked each to discuss the pros and cons of various behaviors that managers say they've observed in some of their Asian employees. One group discussed the propensity some have of not speaking up in meetings - a habit rooted, Hyun says, in a respect for authority. Among the pluses of remaining reserved in meetings, said the group's spokesman, were the perception that you're thoughtful, wise and respectful. And that you're not one to bog a meeting down so it lasts longer.

The downside, though, is that you're perceived as not confident, assertive, gregarious, contributing, or a part of the team.

Cheryl Wong, an MBA candidate, says she was glad to have this awareness-heightening session right before she heads off for her summer marketing internship at a California financial firm. It reminded her of the value of introducing herself to the team if no one else does that during her first few days on the job.

Hyun's further advice for the group:

Seek out mentors - and follow up when they give you advice. She told of one high-level Asian executive who told her that over the past 14 years he's heard from about 125 young people asking for guidance. The number who have actually reported back to him on the outcome - just three! Beware, Hyun says, of issues related to hierarchy - a fear of bothering a busy person or the notion that he or she should be the one to reach out to you.

Get involved in professional groups not just as members, but as leaders. They are great places to develop those speaking and meeting facilitation skills Hyun mentioned earlier. And if your employer has one, sign up for an affinity employee group for those of Asian descent. Such groups often have direct access to senior level types.

Ask for feedback from trusted friends. This would not be on how well you do your job but on how you come across. Ask if there's anything about your work style you might want to alter. But take care not to go too far in the opposite direction. Hyun tells of those who, in trying to compensate for being soft-spoken, have geared up to the point they sound like freight trains.

Look for further techniques for balancing certain characteristics. For instance, if you're timid yet know you might be challenged in a meeting, create scripts ahead of time of what might be said and how you can respond. Or if you know you'll have a tough time on a job interview sharing your great qualities, try the "third-party" approach and when asked, say that your former boss or professor or co-workers always remarked how diligent, creative and solutions-oriented you are.

Take care that employers don't push you into being more Asian than you care to be. Hyun said she's seen mistakes happen when folks were sent to work in a company's Asian division but just didn't have the motivation and ended up not fitting in.

Along those lines, one student posed a question about how someone who has adapted to the Western way - "kicking butt, looking good, being tough" - would be perceived in an overseas assignment. To which a young woman from Japan replied not to worry. Those in her country would expect him to behave that way. After all, of Asian descent or not, in Japan he would be "an outsider."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

“I fell quickly and totally under the spell of this remarkable, wry, and fully realized story.”
—Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True

“An amazing novel.”—John Updike

“Save a place on the shelf between Alice and The Hobbit—that spot is well deserved.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should...captivate devotees of fantasy.”
—Publishers Weekly

The Emperor of Wine : The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste
品酒人生: 美國著名葡萄酒評論家Robert M. Parker, Jr.傳記
- by AElin McCoy

KIRKUS
June 1, 2005
THE EMPEROR OF WINE: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste by Elin McCoy
How the wine industry came to cater to a very particular Nosy Parker.
Who has not favored a bottle of wine because of its numerical score? Chances are, wine and spirits writer McCoy reminds us, that the grade was set by Parker, Le Pape du Vin, reputed to be gifted with the best nose in the business. A wine critic autodidact, Parker started his life in oenology at home in a Washington, D.C., suburb with the mimeographed Wine Advocate, a break from his day job as a corporate attorney. Soon his sharp advocacy spread beyond the beltway. He hired a printer, quit practicing law, added a tasting room to his home and sampled 10,000 wines each year. As the affluent boomer lads of Wall Street became hooked, Parker matured as autocrat of fermented juices. He authored bestselling texts on varietals. Naturally, as his influence increased, he faced critics and competitors, lawsuits and even death threats. As Parker grew stout, vintners learned to produce the kind of drink he liked. Robust French reds designed to secure his 90 nod filled the barrels, as well as the spit receptacles at ubiquitous blind tastings. The producers grumbled, but they liked the francs the Americans provided. Parker, now entitled to wear the rosette of the Legion of Honor, remains the recognized grandee of wine criticism, offering, he insists, truth in beverage. Some see him as the bully of the vineyard. McCoy knows Parker and she knows the tetchy wine business as well. She's familiar with the arcane, often fey language and the nasty hostilities of oenology. She is, finally, ambivalent about Parker's certitude and influence. To some readers, it may seem a lot about a little hedonism; maybe a whiff of the otiose with the oak. But for wine enthusiasts and grape groupies, her text offers something quite juicy.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste McCoy, Elin (Author)
Anyone who's been swayed by the point system when buying wine--selecting a "93" over an "86," for example--can blame Robert Parker, founder of the newsletter the Wine Advocate and now considered by many to be the most influential wine critic ever. McCoy, a wine writer for Bloomberg and Food & Wine , points out that Parker can ruin a winery simply by stamping a sub-80 label on its product. In this amalgamation of biography and American wine mini-history, McCoy delves into how Parker became such a towering figure. Parker discovered fine wine on a European trip during college; his growing obsession with the grape prompted him to start the publication that would later change the way wine was rated, bought and consumed. Between snippets of Parker's life, McCoy tries to set the scene for his rise by explaining how wine consumption boomed in the U.S. in the 1970s. The background is useful, but it and other distracting forays into social history sometimes make the work feel disjointed. Another failing is McCoy's sometimes hagiographic depiction of Parker. But these quibbles knock this otherwise engrossing book down by only a few points on the taste scale. Agent, Alan Kaufman. (July)

YA-YAS IN BLOOM
YA-YA 親親姊妹情
- by Rebecca Wells

"Every bit as joyful as the original…Uplifting, uproarious, saucy, and smart…lives up to the highest expectations" --Booklist
"Entertaining...Wells still charms." --Publishers Weekly
"Readers in touch with their inner Ya-Yas will feel right at home in Thornton."
--New Orleans Times-Picayune
"A sharp ear for dialogue and one of the finest gifts for verbal insult this side of Dorothy Parker."
--Wilmington Star News (NC)

NEWJACK:Guarding Sing Sing, Vintage Books
監獄風雲: 美國星星監獄內幕報導 (暫譯)
- by Ted Conover

“An amazing book…. The stories are spellbinding and the telling is clear and cold.”–The Washington Post Book World
“[Conover] has made us fully part of his experience…. It is hard to imagine any journalist doing this more daringly or effectively.”–The New York Times
“A timely, troubling, important book.”–The Baltimore Sun
“Newjack is a graphic and troubling window into society’s scrapheap. Conover is to be commended for having the chops to venture where few others would dare go.... An important cautionary tale.”–Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Newjack tells the straight skinny on a guard’s life inside prison without being overly judgmental or cloyingly sentimental. It’s experimental journalism at its best.”–The Denver Post
“A devastating chronicle of the toll prison takes on the prisoners and the keepers of the keys.”–Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An incisive and indelible look at the life of a corrections officer and the dark life of the penal system.”–The Dallas Morning News
“A fascinating story.... Prison books crowd the shelves, but few tell the story from the point of view of the officers who spend eight hours a day doing time, hoping and praying that they make it home that night, hoping and praying that the job allows them to remain human.”–The San Diego Union-Tribune

JUDE 裘得
- by Kate Morgenroth

JUDE will be cited as an "IRA Children's Book Award Notable" in an upcoming issue of Reading Today, a bimonthly publication of the International Reading Association, subject to space availability. Children's Book Awards are given for an author's first or second published book written for children or young adults (ages birth to 17 years). Awards are given for fiction and nonfiction in each of three
categories: primary, intermediate, and young adult. To learn more, please visit
2005 Kansas State Reading Circle Catalog: Senior High Titles *TOP PICKS

CATEGORY
*
The Kansas State Reading Circle is a commission of the Kansas National Education Association. The KSRC publishes a yearly list of recommended reading for four age levels: Primary (K-2); Intermediate (3-5), Middle School /Junior High (6-8), and Senior High School (9-YA). Each title is reviewed and annotated in the catalog. JUDE was placed in the TOP PICKS category for Senior High Titles! For more information, please visit

**
New York State Library Association's Charlotte Award Suggested Reading
List: Young Adult
Named for the main character in E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, the purpose of the Charlotte Award is to encourage students to read outstanding literature and ultimately become life-long readers. Additionally, the award recognizes the authors and illustrators of such literature. For more information, please visit

***
New York Public Library: "Books for the Teen Age" 2005
This year marks the 76th edition of NYPL's Books for the Teen Age, which selects the best of the previous year's publishing for teenagers, twelve to eighteen years old. JUDE has been reviewed by young adult librarians and chosen for this special publication. For more information, please visit

***
Texas Tayshas High School Reading List 2005-2006
The objective of the Tayshas project is to motivate young adults to become life-long readers and to participate in the community of readers in Texas. The books selected for the annual list have potential for teen pleasure reading, reflect strong literary standards, recognize the diversity of teen readers in Texas, and recognize values expressed in the Library Bill of Rights. Each year's list offers a range of genres, including nonfiction, will contain no more than two titles from one author, and considers various reading abilities. To learn more, please visit
To view the complete 2005-2006 list, click here

BETSY AND THE EMPEROR has been chosen as a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, 2005, and is an American Booksellers Association Book Sense Pick for Teen Readers, Winter 2004/2005.

From "Kirkus Reviews"
October l, 2004
"This fascinating story plays both with and against the stereotype of Napoleon. Even readers who don't know of Bonaparte will be caught up in the interplay between girl and emperor and the surrounding drama of the world's history-- and their own. (Historical fiction l0-l4)."
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"This tender tale goes down smoothly, like a cool and fruity glass of Vouvray. BETSY AND THE EMPEROR is fun and witty, with a very human Bonaparte."
--Jacques Pepin
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"Young adults who enjoy reading historical fiction will appreciate this book because of Rabin's attention to detail. Any school or public library searching for exciting and accurate historical fiction for young adult readers should purchase this novel." Jonathan Masters, VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)
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From Dianesbooks.com
Betsy And The Emperor
Staton Rabin
Price: $16.95
Utterly charming and based on true events, come with a 14-year-old, Betsy Balcombe, a rebellious, bored British girl who lives on the remote island of St. Helena with her family. It is the autumn of 1815 and Napoleon Bonaparte comes to the island, in exile, a British captive, once loved and master to 82 million souls. The one bright star in Napoleon’s black sky is our willful Betsy who craves adventure and finds instead an amazing unlikely friendship with The Emperor! Your mom loved the Josephine B Trilogy you will love Betsy And The Emperor (soon to be a movie)!
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"Staton Rabin's fictionalized tale is a fast-paced blend of humor and adventure. Readers interested in historical tales and strong heroines will find much to like in this story." Heidi Hauser Green, "Children's Literature"
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From Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Review
http://www.lookingglassreview.com/Children_s_book_reviews_novels.html
Betsy and the Emperor
Staton Rabin
Fiction
Ages 10 and up
Simon and Schuster, 2004, 0-689-85880-9
When Betsy comes home to the island of Elba* she is delighted to finally be free of the horrid boarding school where she spent many quite unpleasant months. Her parents hope that the school has done its duty and turned their daughter into a young lady. Alas, Betsy still has a will of her own, and she is still very unladylike in her behavior, her thoughts, and her actions.
Before she even has time to fully settle in, Betsy finds herself in the middle of a very bizarre situation. The powers that be have decided that Betsy's family are to take in a most controversial house guest and it is not long before Betsy, despite herself, is becoming friends with that most notorious of despots, Napoleon Bonaparte. The famous general and the fourteen year old girl find that they have much in common and Betsy cannot help liking the odd little man who loves children and who has a very unpredictable temper. She soon finds herself wishing that she could help Napoleon and she deplores the way in which he is being treated by his English captors. If only there was something she could do to help.
With great skill and a wonderful understanding of the humor that lies in so much of what we do, the author of this excellent piece of historical fiction has created a bittersweet novel full of vibrant and lovable characters. Along with Betsy we find ourselves liking Napoleon Bonaparte and wishing that there was some way to free him from his prison. The reader will find an excellent section at the back of the book which clarifies how much of Betsy's story is true and which describes Bonaparte's real imprisonment on the island of St. Helena.
*Reviewer's typo. The island is St. Helena-- SR
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American Booksellers Association Book Sense Picks for Teen Readers Winter 2004/2005:
BETSY AND THE EMPEROR: A Novel, by Staton Rabin (Margaret K. McElderry/S&S, $16.95, 0689858809) "Betsy and the Emperor is a fun look at a quirky historical figure, Napoleon. Any independent-minded youngster will quickly relate to Betsy and her constant challenging of 'nonsense' rules, and her friendship with the fierce emperor imprisoned on her island." --Sonya Brooks, Reader's Choice Bookstore, Centerville, OH
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From PBS STATION 39, Lehigh Valley PA, "News for Teachers" newsletter: BETSY AND THE EMPEROR by Staton Rabin. Historical fiction for children that is tremendous fun. Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to the remote island of St. Helena where he is housed with Betsy Balcombe's family. The only bright spot in Napoleon's life at this time is the presence of brave, headstrong and intriguing young Betsy."
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BETSY AND THE EMPEROR picked as one of the "Top Ten Children's Books of 2004" by the Stuart Brent Children's Book Club, URL: http://www.stuartbrent.com/picks/
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BETSY AND THE EMPEROR chosen for the Chinaberry Books children's book catalog, Summer, 2005. Out of every one hundred books they review, they choose only one for their catalog.
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Homeschooling curriculum company Sonlight/Inquisicorp purchased 5000 copies of BETSY AND THE EMPEROR for sale to parents who homeschool their kids.
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"Though I certainly recommend the book for family or friends in the early adolescent age bracket, read it yourself first! Staton Rabin’s writing style is clever and fast paced, with no hint of condescension to a youthful audience. Betsy Balcombe is a heroine of classic mode, and very memorable...Betsy and the Emperor managed to leave me – quite literally – with a few tears in my eyes."
--Douglas J. Allan, President and CEO, The Napoleonic Society of America
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American Booksellers Association Book Sense Bestseller e-mail: "May We Recommend" section lists BETSY AND THE EMPEROR
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New England Children's Bookselling Advisory Council
Top Tier Titles:
Betsy & the Emperor
Notable Aspects: characters
interesting setting
historical authenticity
Review: "Having read both YA Napoleon books new this season I can say with certainty that this is my favorite. The fact that it mimics a true story really enhanced it for me...really well researched and gives us real insight into Napoleon as a person... and his young friend Betsy (who luckily kept journals) as well. I think it is a fun and tidy piece of historical fiction."
--Mimi Powell
Baker Books

"Betsy and the Emperor is an engaging, well written, tender tale, and a must read for anyone interested in Napoleon Bonaparte."
--BookLoons Reviews

Staff Picks for November 2004 (Emma Casale of The Children's Bookstore, Baltimore, MD)
Betsy and the Emperor
By Staton Rabin
Published bySimon and Schuster $16.95

When Napoleon Bonaparte was sent into exile on St. Helena in 1815, he lived with the Balcombe family and befriended their daughter Betsy Balcombe. This story exposes the softer side of Napoleon as well as following the development of Betsy Balcombe from a girl into a young woman, it is both funny and poignant. This is my favorite novel to be released during this fall season and I highly recommend it. This novel is based on the true story of Napoleon and Betsy Balcombe as indicated in the Author's note at the end of the novel.
-Emma Casale
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Customer review from Amazon.com, ****** 5 stars (review by Sandy Gingras):

This is a wonderful book. I would recommend it for both adult and young adult readers. Even if you don't care a hoot about Napoleon or about history, for that matter, you will swept away by this novel. Betsy is everything you want a 14 year old girl to be, sassy and bright and intuitive and rebellious. Napoleon is, well, Napoleon...a huge historical figure, but wrought here in a way that renders him entirely human (and a fascinating person at that). Staton Rabin takes facts and fiction and blends them up in this novel into a wonderful mix, more true than truth in the end (which is what great fiction does). This is such an interesting novel. It cooks along and is entirely quirky and compelling--just as a "coming of age" story for Betsy. But it is so much more than that. It is about how the grand scale of history is tipped every day by the ordinary, how huge historical figures are, in the end, simply human. It is fast paced, well written, funny, moving, quirky and wild. It is a pleasure to be in Staton Rabin's head and in her heart and in the world that she creates with this book. This is a gem of a novel. I'm giving it to some great young adults that I know (who will eat it up!). I'm also passing it along to some adults that I know will relish it!
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BETSY AND THE EMPEROR Selected by the staff of Travel for Kids: "top picks" for children's books about France:
"Captivating novel of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, in exile on St. Helena. Now a prisoner, living with a local family, Boney finds a kindred spirit in teenage Betsy Balcombe, an uncommon young lady, who plots his escape from the remote island."
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From Auckland City Libraries:
Based on a true story - this is a wonderful look at Napoleon, as a person, instead of a warmonger, through the eyes of 14-year-old Betsy whose family life is turned upside down when Napoleon is sent to St Helena, where they live. Betsy befriends the deposed Emperor, beginning as part of her rebellion against the constraints upon her. But soon she finds there is more to Napoleon than she'd thought.
Recommended for ages 12+
Reviewed by Annie
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Customer Review from Barnes & Noble:
A reviewer, November 19, 2004,
**** (Four Stars)
I loved it!
I had to read this book for school, and I really enjoyed it! It's a fun way of learning history and it has a very entertaining storyline. Two thumbs up!
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BEST CHILDREN'S BOOKS OF 2004, "The Toledo Blade" (newspaper)
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2004411270309
(one of four YA books chosen for 2004 as the best of the year by four university professors who specialize in children's literature)
Betsy and the Emperor. Written by Staton Rabin. McElderry Books $16.95.

After Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo he became a prisoner of the British and was exiled to the island of St. Helena. For a time he lived with the Balcombe family there and became involved in their daily lives. Betsy, the rebellious teenage daughter, became his friend and confidante. This friendship allows Betsy to be her own person and the emperor to cope with his imprisonment. Betsy's strength and courage make her a fascinating heroine. (Dr. Barbara St. John, children's literature specialist from Bowling Green State University, retired)
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From "The Buffalo News"
KiD BiTS
12/1/2004
SOMETHING TO READ
Betsy and the Emperor by Staton Rabin (McElderry Books, $16.95).
When Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island of St. Helena in 1815, he stayed in the mansion of the Balcombe family and struck up an unlikely friendship with the family's rebellious 14-year-old daughter, Betsy.
Based on true events, Rabin's novel offers humor, adventure and drama, as Betsy grows fond of the emperor and even conspires to help him escape using a hot-air balloon she helps stitch together from silk gowns!
- Jean Westmoore
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Recent Book Signings and Talks by Staton Rabin for BETSY AND THE EMPEROR:

LitLife Symposium on the teaching of writing. Lecture and book signing for 75 teachers in Westchester County.
Napoleonic Society of America, Lecture and book signing at their Annual Conference, Washington D.C.
Cunard's ship Queen Mary 2 (four lectures about screenwriting, and book signing) on a cruise.
New York is Book Country (panelist on "books into film" and book signing)
NAIBA Trade Show, Atlantic City. Book Signing
The Dalton School, NYC, Lecture for 7th graders, where the book was required reading for English class. Kids did assignments for a week surrounding the book and the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Main Street School, Irvington, New York. Three lectures for l60 fifth graders, and book signing.
G'Day World Podcast, one-hour interview. See www.gdayworld.com and download MP3 file, for On the Pod with Staton Rabin, Feb. 12, 2005
Mother-Daughter Book Group, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY March, 2005
Irvington Library Book Group (6th and 7th graders and their parents), March, 2005

Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

類別：歷史 傳記 政治
BOBBY FISCHER GOES TO WAR
鮑比費雪上戰場 (或世紀棋賽)
- by David Edmonds and John Eidinow

" It is really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians... This little thing betweenme and Spassky. It's a microcosm of the whole world political situation. They always suggest that the world leaders should fight in out hand to hand. And this I sthe kind of thing that we are doing - not with bombs, but battling it out over the board." by Bobby Fisher

類別：非小說 自傳 大學 教育
Privilege : Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class
特權階級: 哈佛大學的精英階級
- by Ross Gregory Douthat

精裝, 2005年3月美國版出版

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Its very name a cultural weapon, Harvard arms the fortunate few it admits with such social power that they can "drop the H bomb" on overawed listeners merely by mentioning where they attend school. How this revered institution and its students acquired such daunting social power and whether they still deserve it are the questions at the heart of this incisive critique written from the Right. Douthat offers a withering indictment of Harvard's institutional culture, a culture in which the administration (and not just the president), the faculty, and the students have all drifted into self-congratulatory complacency. In the academic world Douthat describes, professors have long since repudiated traditional moral imperatives and have now distanced themselves from the gauche radicalism of the hard Left, so contenting themselves with the abundance provided by global capitalism and the moral bromides generated by parlor liberalism. Such professors provide little educational guidance to students themselves too smugly impressed with their own achievement in winning admission to the school to worry much about intellectual labors not requisite for careers of affluence and prominence. Douthat recognizes that his own years at Harvard permitted him the luxury of stimulating out-of-class discussions with brilliant fellow students, but those moments of inspiration came in spite of the cozy creed of careerist success that has established itself as the only orthodoxy at the nation's premier university. Bryce Christensen
Copyright c American Library Association. All rights reserved

類別：非小說 基因科學
THE GENIUS FACTORY（藍燈書屋預定今年六月出版）
天才工廠：諾貝爾獎得主精子銀行大搜密 （暫譯）
- by David Plotz

Advance praise The Genius Factory

“The Genius Factory is a riveting account of a truly bizarre episode in American history–Robert Graham’s crusade to save the human race. David Plotz has written a superb book about the quest for genius, and, ultimately, family.”
–Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point

“I want to start a terrific writers sperm bank, and the first seed I want in the inventory is David Plotz’s. Plotz has it all. He’s an incredible, unstoppable reporter–unrelenting yet always fair and compassionate–and a deft, witty writer. Plotz’s account of the Nobel Prize sperm bank is an absorbing, surprising, deeply human tale of deceit and megalomania, of hopes and dreams and eugenics gone wild.”
–Mary Roach, author of Stiff

“One part detective story, one part cultural snapshot, and one part just plain weird, the tale of California’s infamous Nobel Prize sperm bank is unexpectedly enthralling. David Plotz gives us the science, the business, the ambitions, and most especially the people: from founders to donors to mothers and children. A marvelous and thoroughly engaging read.”
–Atul Gawande, author of Complications

“If it weren’t so disturbingly true, The Genius Factory would be a gripping work of science fiction. David Plotz’s terrific reporting uncovers one man’s quest to ‘improve’ the species and its complex, touching, troubling, very human repercussions.”
–Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players

類別：非小說, 歷史, 生活, 美食, 自然, 旅行文學
THE PHILOSOPHER FISH:Sturgeon, Caviar and the Geography of Desire
追尋魚子醬: 慾望之旅
(精裝, 256頁, 2005年3月出版)
作者： Richard Adams Carey

Kirkus Reviews
January 1, 2005

BODY:
Hard to imagine that a story about fish eggs could be "fast-paced," not to mention prophetic. But this piece of environmental journalism is both.

Carey (Against the Tide, 1999, etc.) traces the rise of the caviar industry and the concomitant decline of the sturgeon. Caviar dates to at least the 13th century, when a Mogol king dined on the eggs at a monastery, though in medieval Russia caviar was not a luxury--even peasants ate the "blackberry jam of tiny globes." By the late 19th century, the taste for roe had spread to Germany, France, and the US, where it quickly achieved delicacy status and remains one of the most expensive epicurean dishes around: at Manhattan's upscale Petrossian, says Carey, two ounces of beluga caviar cost well over a hundred dollars. Just a century ago, sturgeon were everywhere, the big kid on the block in most river systems in the northern hemisphere; but now the creatures whose eggs are so delectable have been overfished and are on the brink of extinction. Carey introduces scientists, entrepreneurs, and activists who are trying hard to keep the sturgeon around, though as is often the case with environmental policy, red tape and competing interests mean slow progress. A long tousle over the status of beluga sturgeon under the Endangered Spices Act culminated in 2004 with the listing of the fish as threatened, but the fate of beluga caviar imports to the US is still up in the air. In relating all this, Carey introduces some charming characters, from Petrossian's head buyer, Eve Vega, to crusading lawyer biologist Frank Chapman. As for the subtitle, don't be skeptical: this really is a book about desire. It's about how Americans balance supply and demand, how "we discipline ourselves to measure our desires against finite means." As such, it's a book about America in microcosm.

Caviar, it turns out, is not just tasty. In Carey's hands, it's luminous.

類別：Movie Tie-in電影原著小說 (電影由Atom Egoyan 導演 即將於坎城影展首演)
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
真相何處尋 (暫譯)
(平裝 432頁 一般開本)
作者： Rupert Holmes

"Where the Truth Lies is a beguiling suspense novel. It's sexy and surprising, witty and intriguing. I was hooked from the very first page."
–慾望城市作者, CANDACE BUSHNELL, author of Sex in the City and Four Blondes

“A big, juicy book with pungent dialogue, vivid descriptions, [and] outsized characters . . . It’s not surprise that when Holmes wrote a mystery it would prove so entertaining. . . . Where the Truth Lies is a labor of love. Every scrap of lawyerese or Mafia-speak, every tidbit of Hollywood lore, every scene of mental or physical intoxication, every tightening of suspense is beautifully rendered, polished to a sheen. Holmes seduces us.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Holmes, who has won honors galore for his inventive storytelling on Broadway, [delivers] a giddy fun-house ride through bygone eras.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“[A] tour de force . . . Pulitzers . . . do not commonly go to mysteries. But for Holmes to win his third Edgar—for first mystery novel—that would not be out of the question.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“Delectable . . . a wonderfully witty first novel . . . It’ll keep you tossing and turning pages all night long!”
—Newsweek

類別：科普
Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival
我的生存之道-動物篇
- by Bernd Heinrich

**Bernd Heinrich's WINTER WORLD in the Los Angeles Time Book Review, February 23, 2003:

Finding joy in snowy woods
Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival, Bernd Heinrich, The Ecco Press: 352 pp., $24.95
By David Gessner
David Gessner is the author of "Return of the Osprey." He teaches environmental writing at Harvard.

February 23 2003

The phrase "nature writing" is a narrowing one, and it tends to irritate the art's practitioners. It suggests something limited and quaint, and slightly anachronistic, like scrimshaw carved on a whale's tooth. It also belies both the wildness and variety of nature itself, as well as the wide range of human responses to it.

People -- including people who write about the natural world -- go to nature for a variety of reasons. There are those who go into the wild to prove themselves, for therapy, for a respite from the hurrying world, and there are aesthetes who go for reasons similar to the motives of visitors to an art museum.

For Bernd Heinrich, the author of "Winter World," nature is a place of wonder and adventure. It is also, primarily, a lab. It is where he goes to satisfy his insatiable curiosity about how animals and plants adapt and survive in the world. If this sounds like a kind of elevated version of a show on the Nature Channel, it is because sometimes it is. As a reader who likes a little more of the personal and spiritual mixed into the granola of nature writing, I found myself occasionally wishing for less of a comprehensive list of the winter survival techniques of animals -- hibernation, self-induced torpors, food hoarding -- and more of a relating of these facts to some overall meaning.

Inevitably, Heinrich is compared to Henry David Thoreau -- a comparison that any nature writer seems to elicit from critics -- but this is accurate only in a limited sense: to the later Thoreau who recorded the minutiae and phenology of his place in his journal, not to the Thoreau who wrote "Walden." In "Walden," Thoreau's central question was "how to live?" As a biologist, in "Winter World," Heinrich's central question is "how do golden-crowned kinglets live?"

To judge Heinrich by overly literary standards, however, is to miss the point. The point of "Winter World" -- and an example of the varied possibilities of the environmental genre -- isn't to offer elevated sentences like Thoreau's but to offer vital learning. Though not a lyric writer in the tradition of Peter Matthiessen or John Hay, Heinrich, through his accumulated details, has an overall lyric effect, not just of elevation but also of fascination. In the end, the facts create a poetry of accretion and do a fine job of re-creating a miraculous and multifarious world of survival.

We soon find ourselves in the midst of a thrilling detective story as Heinrich tramps through the snowy Maine woods trying to learn how the tiny kinglets, weighing only 5 grams, can survive a night at 30 below. The pleasure of "Winter World" is in following the author's mind as he puts questions to himself and us, bringing up theories and then testing those theories on the 300 acres of his Maine retreat. "What insects could there possibly be in winter?" he asks when trying to unlock the mystery of the kinglets' diet. No sooner has he asked the question than he is out in the woods banging trees with a club, collecting the tiny caterpillars that prove to be the key. In fact Heinrich is in awe of the world's interconnectedness, and a particularly happy quality of Heinrich's mind is its agile yoking of the local and global. His consideration, for instance, of how the kinglets survive the night leads to a theory about dinosaurs and the evolution of insulating feathers.

Heinrich explains that human beings deal with winter by creating a microenvironment like "an artificial tropics": "And with good reason, too, as we're adapted to a tropical environment and maintain it around ourselves all year long, through our housing and our clothing." But the human way is just one strategy in dealing with winter. "Winter World" presents, among other things, a great list of the variety of responses to the cold months: from the communal huddling of flying squirrels to the underwater foraging of beavers to the near-death of snapping turtles that essentially hold their breath for four months in the mud below the ice.

At its best, the book celebrates Heinrich's love affair with the winter animals and their tenacity. He introduces us to the "subnivian" tunnels of voles, shrews and mice, the well-insulated and relatively warm space between snow and soil where these little animals survive by chewing on the bark at the bottoms of trees. We find ourselves thinking that winter is a good time to be a vole, until we read about the hunters that follow the slightest scratching sound and plunge through layers of snow: dive-bombing owls and coyotes that hop in the air before crashing down.

Though he conscientiously keeps personal details from intruding, Heinrich's final description of the kinglet smacks a little of self-portrait. He writes of the bird's "undampened enthusiasm and raw drive" and its "infectious hyperenthusiasm." He continues: "Presumably it could not contemplate its fate, regret about mistakes, or fret over lost opportunities. It does not worry about the future, or about life and death." A description of the bird, yes, but also a middle-aged self-pep talk? Whatever the case, we feel the same drive and enthusiasm propelling the author as he charges through the lyric lab that his Maine woods has become. If he is more Mr. Science than Thoreau, then he is Mr. Science with a deep sense of delight and empathy, reveling in this secret world that no one else seems to see. It is in this regard, despite his acknowledgment of man's uncanny ability to screw up everything from the global temperature to the roosting caves of bats, that I found this an almost singularly optimistic book.

Finally, there is another secret aspect of this fine book's appeal. Honest readers of so-called nature writing will admit that they come to the genre not just for the earnest and healthful pleasures of education and wonder, but also for something simpler: the guilty pleasure of romance. This of course is not the busting bodice variety of romance but the romance of retreat: from Thoreau's archetypal retreat at Walden to Robinson Jeffers' hand-built house of stone overlooking the Pacific at Big Sur to Wendell Berry by his river in Kentucky.

We can now add Bernd Heinrich's Maine cabin to the list. It is no accident that Heinrich often refers to Jack London or that he mentions his love of building snow caves as a child. His homemade cabin, without electricity, is a place where water is brought from a well or melted from snow, where he and the students he takes there to study "have been known to fry our own voles."

The Thoreauvian tradition is a wide one, and Bernd Heinrich, though a science writer, is also a wonderful nature writer. He is a scientist who, in his not-so-secret heart, still likes building snow caves and revels in the pure pleasure of learning. He is also the sort of scientist who, wanting to find out more about how beavers live, dives into the water and climbs up the tunnel into an abandoned den. It is one of the joys of "Winter World" that he invites us to dive along with him.

***Bernd Heinrich's WINTER WORLD in the New York Times Book Review.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/books/review/26BARTUST.html

The book is currently #54 on Amazon and here is some information from h