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THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS by Langdon Cook

January 21, 2014

THE WILD WEST WORLD of professional mushroom hunting, brought to life in all its seedy, picaresque glory. B PLUS

THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS : ON THE TRAIL OF AN UNDERGROUND AMERICA
Ballantine Books
2013

Grade: B PLUS

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THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS, by Langdon Cook

January 20, 2014

THE WILD WEST WORLD of professional mushroom hunting, brought to life in all its seedy, picaresque glory.

Grade: B PLUS

THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS: ON THE TRAIL OF AN UNDERGROUND AMERICA
Ballantine
2013

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SOY SAUCE FOR BEGINNERS by Kirstin Chen

January 19, 2014

SINGAPORE OR CALIFORNIA? Music or business? A young woman faces big choices at a time of family turmoil. B PLUS

SOY SAUCE FOR BEGINNERS
New Harvest
2014

Grade: B PLUS

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MY NOTORIOUS LIFE by Kate Manning

January 18, 2014

A FASHIONABLE MIDWIFE CLASHES with “public purity” crusaders in a brilliantly evoked 19th century New York. B PLUS

MY NOTORIOUS LIFE
Scribner
2013

Grade: B PLUS

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DUTY by Robert M. Gates

January 17, 2014

FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Robert Gates’s memoir of his Cabinet years is startlingly candid, oddly cranky. SOLID B

DUTY: MEMOIRS OF A SECRETARY AT WAR
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
2014

Grade: SOLID B

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AN ENGLISH AFFAIR by Richard Davenport-Hines

January 16, 2014

A TOFF’S-EYE VIEW OF the Profumo Affair, the 1963 sex scandal that rocked English society. Witty and wise! B PLUS

AN ENGLISH AFFAIR : SEX, CLASS AND POWER IN THE AGE OF PROFUMO
William Collins
2013

Grade: B PLUS

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SHIRLEY CHISHOLM by Barbara Winslow

January 15, 2014

PIONEERING POLITICAL LEADER Shirley Chisholm, the first black US Congresswoman, profiled in a must-read bio. B PLUS

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
Westview Press
2013

Grade: B PLUS

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YOU DISAPPEAR by Christian Jungersen

January 14, 2014

A MARRIAGE SHATTERED, a career ended, and a family in crisis after a man’s brain tumor. Intense Danish novel. B PLUS

YOU DISAPPEAR
Nan A. Talese
2014

Grade: B PLUS

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BORDER CROSSINGS by Charles Novacek

January 13, 2014

INTRIGUING, IMPASSIONED MEMOIR of a youth spent in the Czechoslovakian resistance to Nazis, then Soviets. B PLUS

BORDER CROSSINGS: COMING OF AGE IN THE CZECH RESISTANCE
1021 Press
2012

Grade: B PLUS

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THE AFRICAN SHORE by Rodrigo Rey Rosa

January 12, 2014

BLEAKLY GORGEOUS NOVEL contrasts peasant and tourist life in Morocco. Beautiful, spare, and haunting. A MINUS

THE AFRICAN SHORE
Yale University Press
2013

Grade: A MINUS

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