Book Review: The Happiness Project

Gretchen Rubin’s yearlong journey, The Happiness Project, is a straightforward read, developed from her blog of the same name. Laced with scientific research, philosophy, and personal analysis, Rubin's book takes us through her own personal “Aha” moments about how to make life more fun, happy and hopefully stress free. Month by month we follow the author through her resolutions such as eating better, which she refers to as “no fake food,” or no nagging comments, which was very tough for her argumentative personality. Overall, readers will gain at least one nugget of useful information that can help better their happiness quotient. Rubin offers straightforward suggestions, along with other readers’ tips, to share specifics of what has been successful in that elusive journey toward true happiness. Check out the Happiness Project website, if you’d like a sneak peek at the author’s happiness toolkit.

New Arrivals

New books and audiobooks that arrived this week at the Chandler Library:

Adult fiction
Warlord, by Ted Bell
The new adventure featuring British spy Alex Hawke.

Pretty Little Things, by Jilliane Hoffman
When a 13-year old girl goes missing, an investigator finds himself in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with an online predator.

Adult nonfiction
The English Is Coming, by Leslie Dunton-Downer
Fascinating stories of English words and how they're used around the world.

Badasses, by Peter Richmond
A down-and-dirty history of the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s.

Teen fiction
Crusade, by Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguie
Six young vampire hunters try to stop the Cursed Ones from taking over the world.

Dear America: The Fences Between Us, by Kirby Larson
(also on audio)
Piper Davis awaits news from her brother, a solider on the battleship Arizona stationed in Pearl Harbor.

Junior fiction
Reckless, by Cornelia Funke
A magical mirror transports a boy into another world in this new adventure by the author of Inkheart.

Goosebumps Horrorland: The Wizard of Ooze, by R.L. Stine
Why is Marco being followed by a man dressed as his favorite comic book villain?

Picture books and Readers
Max & Ruby's Bedtime Book, by Rosemary Wells
"Just one more story!" Max and Ruby beg their grandmother.

Martha Speaks: Haunted House, by Susan Meddaugh
Martha the talking dog has to deliver flowers to a very scary house.

New feature - Reserve study rooms online!

Do you need to use a study room? You can now reserve study rooms online, in advance and from home, without calling the library and waiting on hold. All you need is your library card and PIN numbers. You can make one reservation per day per library card, up to a week in advance.

Start at chandlerlibrary.org and look for the Study Room Reservations link:

Choose the branch where you want to make your reservation. Downtown, Sunset, and Basha have study rooms.

Choose your date and room number. The grid will show you what times are available. Use the checkboxes to select your desired time. You can have one block of up to two hours per day. Then click the Continue button at the bottom of the page.

Enter your library card and PIN numbers. (Forgot your PIN? Call 480-782-2800.) Click Login, then your name and email address will appear. An email address is required - enter one here if one does not come up.

Enter the number of people using the room (max. 4 for most rooms, max. 6 for Downtown rooms 137 and 138). Verify that all the information is correct, then click Verify Request.

You'll get a confirmation email showing your room number and date, along with a cancellation link. You might want to print this out so you remember which room you're in. (Please don't use a different room - it will alter our schedule for the rest of the day!)

There's a cancellation link in case you need to cancel your room - just click it to go to the cancellation page. Please cancel as soon as you know you can't make it to open the room up to others.

When you come in for your reservation, you can go right to your room - no need to check in at the desk! (Let us know if someone else is in your room by mistake.)

Fall book preview

Bestsellers, new fiction, nonfiction and more are due out this fall. Click to learn more about these highly anticipated titles, and place a hold to reserve your spot on the waiting list.

Hell's Corner, by David Baldacci
The lastest adventure featuring Oliver Stone and the Camel Club. (Publication date: Nov 9)
also in Audio, Large Type

Wicked Appetite, by Janet Evanovich
The mystery writer launches a new series with an offbeat couple battling the Seven Deadly Sins. (Publication date: Sep 14)
also in Audio

The Confession, by John Grisham
A guilty man has four days to save an innocent man on death row in this new legal thriller. (Publication date: Oct 26)
also in Audio, Large Type

Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks
Secrets surround a mysterious young woman who appears in a small North Carolina town. (Publication date: Sep 14)
also in Audio, Large Type

Decision Points, by George W. Bush
A memoir by America’s 43rd president. (Publication date: Nov 9)
also in Large Type

Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That? by Ina Garten
New recipes for delicious food that can be prepared with a minimum of fuss. (Publication date: Oct 26)

My Discoveries - make your own booklists

Too many things you'd like to read? You can now make your own lists of books you'd like to read, books you read and liked, or books you'd like to tag with descriptive phrases, using the My Discoveries feature in our new library catalog.


Anytime you search for a book - or anything else - in our new catalog, you'll have a chance to log in to My Discoveries.When you pull up the full record (click on the title), you'll see the "Save or Tag" option on the right.Click here, and you'll be prompted to log in to My Discoveries. The first time you click, you'll be prompted to register. (Make sure to save your username and password, as it's not stored with the rest of your checkout information so library staff cannot look it up for you.)


When you log in, the screen will refresh and show a new field where you can add the title to a list and tag it. Scroll down to look for the field under the tags, just above the copy availability.


Choose "Add to list" and you'll have an opportunity to create a list or add the title to an existing list. Then type in a tag or description and click Save. You can view your lists anytime by clicking My Discoveries in the upper right and logging in.


Please note: books you put on your My Discoveries list will not automatically be added to your holds list. To place a hold, click Place Hold and enter your library card and PIN numbers.

Book Review: The Glass Rainbow

THE GLASS RAINBOW, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell together forever? Written by James Lee Burke, read by Will Patton, reviewed by Star Lawrence

This is the 18th Robicheaux/Purcell caper—is it the last? I will get to that in a moment.

Dave, as the legions of fans know, is a mercurial cop-family man guy, who was tossed off the New Orleans PD and landed in the New Iberia, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department. Clete is his bigger-than-life brawler of a pal, late of the NO cops, never at the Sheriff’s Department, and now sort of a freewheeling PI and world-class drinker.

These two are low-life Velcro. They find every reptilian, old-money, new-money, pimp and scoundrel rattling around Louisiana, In The Glass Rainbow, they are entangled with a creepy old oil man and his dilettante son, Kermit. Added to the mix are some young women tossed into landfills like trash and one of those celebrity criminals. You know, the kind celebrities lionize.

About then, Dave starts spotting the phantom steam paddlewheeler on his beloved Bayou Teche outside his house. And the guys in the black SUVs start to show up.

Amidst the trademark Burke nature lore, the bruised skies, the tink of raindrops, the great grand-daughter of New Orleans famed voodoo queen glances at Dave and remarks that he is “disappearin’, thinning out.”

Now, I don’t want to spoil this, but let’s say the ending is ambiguous. Dave boards the paddlewheeler, sees his long-dead parents, medics from Vietnam…Clete tries to pull him back down the gangplank.

Is this the end for our guys?

Star Lawrence owns two websites—one, HEALTHSass (http://healthsass.blogspot.com/), contains interesting health tidbits and the other, Do the Hopey Copey (http://hopeycopey.blogspot.com/) is for those seeking to stay alive in this economy.

Books in the News

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman was reviewed by Maureen Corrigan on NPR’s Fresh Air. This story about social manners in Silicon Valley during the dot-com era, featuring two sisters with opposite personalities, has been described as "updated Austen [that] hits the spot."

Room by Emma Donoghue has been nominated for the UK’s Man Booker Prize, and will be published in the U.S. in September. The Guardian calls it, "Perhaps the most controversial novel [on the nomination list], inspired by the case of Josef Fritzl who kept his daughter prisoner for 24 years," and The Economist says, "…it is already being talked about as the next The Lovely Bones."



The Power, the follow-up to Rhonda Byrne’s bestseller The Secret, is due out on August 17. The New York Times noted that the publisher has planned an initial print run of 2 million copies, and describes The Power as "a handbook to the greatest power in the universe - the power to have everything you want."