>CHILDREN'S
The Blue Shoe by Roderick Townley; Knopf, 255 pages ($16.99)
A critically acclaimed author joins forces with Harry Potter illustrator Mary Grand Pre for this thrilling fantasy of good versus evil, set in the shadow of towering Mount Xexnax with its fortress beggars' prison. There are shades of both Dickens and Rowling here, but Townley tells an original tale of a man thrown in prison. His son, Hap, is apprenticed to a shoemaker, who is hired by a mysterious stranger to craft one shoe, adorned with valuable gems that cast an eerie blue light. The boy steals a gem from the shoe to help a beggar girl and is also thrown in prison, where he finds a world of troll-like Aukis, who disdain the world of men and seek to protect their mountain from greedy humans who desire their secret. Townley meticulously crafts this suspenseful tale, peoples it with unforgettable characters and creates a vivid world right down to a language invented for the Aukis. Brave Hap Barlo is assisted by intrepid friend Sophia, who follows him into prison rolled inside a carpet, giving the book appeal to both boys and girls.
replica breitling-Jean Westmoore
***
>FICTION
Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers; Farrar Straus, 296 pages ($25)
Though 23-year-old Thassa comes from war-torn Algeria, where tag heuer replica her family has been killed in the civil war, she is perpetually happy. As a student at Mesquakie College of Art in Chicago, she immediately lifts the mood of her instructor and classmates. So wouldn't science go to town on her, anxious to discover her difference -and whether it's marketable?
In his 10th novel, Richard Powers is again preoccupied with contemporary science's unyielding promise of mastery over human fate.
Thassadit Amzwar is the happy person in question; hyperthymia, a state of constant happiness, is her condition; and Russell Stone is her instructor. In this character-driven novel, Powers' empathy extends not only to Thassa, but to the entire frenzied culture, including the geneticist Thomas Kurton who isolates in Thassa what the media quickly dub "the happiness gene."
Rare among our writers, Powers seeks to bridge the science- humanities divide, so that specialists in each sphere become more conversant with the other. Powers depicts science's hubris- exemplified by Kurton-without condemning its motive; our progress depends on science's idealism.
The neatest turn in the novel is toward the end, when new circumstances make us wonder how much of Thassa's happiness is due to sheer force of will; hence the "generosity" of the title, rather than happiness as a genetic trait.
***
>NONFICTION
Healing the Broken Mind: Transforming America's Failed Mental Health System by Timothy
In this year of debate over health care reform, a former state mental health commissioner shares his 30 years of experience to describe the failings of mental health care in the United States and to advocate a major overhaul.
Kelly is a former commissioner of Virginia's Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. His experience in the workings of state institutions and outpatient service-providers is eye-opening and lends support to his proposals for reform.
embroidered patches
The book include
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