Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith

Deborah Heiligman

Beginning with Darwin's notorious chart listing reasons to wed and not to wed, Heiligman has created a unique, flowing, and meticulously researched picture of the controversial scientist and the effect of his marriage on his life and work. Using the couple's letters, diaries, and notebooks as well as documents and memoirs of their relatives, friends, and critics, the author lets her subjects speak for themselves while rounding out the story of their relationship with information about their time and place. She shows how Darwin's love for his intelligent, steadfast, and deeply religious cousin was an important factor in his scientific work—pushing him to document his theory of natural selection for decades before publishing it with great trepidation. Just as the pair embodied a marriage of science and religion, this book weaves together the chronicle of the development of a major scientific theory with a story of true love. School Library Journal

Science and romance...hand in hand!--J. Asmus

Reality Check

by Peter Abrhams

Set in Little Bend, CO, and North Dover, VT, Abrahams's novel follows Cody, 16, who sustains a serious knee injury that leaves him on the bench during the most important recruiting year in his high school career. With no college scholarship in sight, he drops out of school. When his rich girlfriend, Clea, is reported missing from her Vermont boarding school, he drives East to find her and endangers himself in the process. That Cody is a country boy and a dropout both complicate and inform his detective persona; the realization that "with the exception of football" he was wasting his time in school sends him "some message about a whole different way for him to look at things, to live." It is this "whole different way" that allows Cody—a fish out of water among wealthy Dover Academy students—to solve the mystery, though not before a red herring is revealed and a surprise villain is unmasked.--School Library Journal

J.Asmus--This book is a page-turner!

Raven by Allison Van Diepen

I just finished this book, and tried a new Web 2.0 app--xtranormal. It was easy to use, but the results seem a bit clunky.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

What a wonderful second book in an exciting series. This book grabbed me and wouldn't let go until I was finished. I can hardly wait for the third installment.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Another supernatural love story, Twilight-esque, but with werewolves.

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

This book was terrific! What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel set during the civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams.