New in Ref: Money, Law in Plain English, and Aerial Photos of the Willamette

We get new and updated resources in our Reference Collection every week. Check out updated guides to stocks, bonds, legal terms, the US Budget, and 2005 aerial photography of the Willamette River. Look for them near the Adult Services Reference desk, plus some titles have circulating copies available, or are accessible online. Links below:

Title:  All about bonds, bond mutual funds, and bond ETFs  
Author:  Faerber, Esme.
Edition:  3rd ed., Fully rev.
Publisher, Date:  New York : McGraw-Hill, c2009.

Title:  All about options : the easy way to get started  
Author:  McCafferty, Thomas.
Edition:  3rd ed.

Title:  Nolo’s plain-English law dictionary  
Call Number:  349.7303
Edition:  1st ed.
Publisher, Date:  Berkeley, Calif. : Nolo, 2009.

Title:  2005 Willamette River aerial photography with public lands, land trusts and revetments [electronic resource]  
Edition:  Rev. ed.
Publisher, Date:  [Salem, Or.] : Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board
View Online at: http://oregon.gov/OWEB/docs/pubs/WillametteRiver_Atlas_2008.pdf

Title:  Updated summary tables, May 2009 : budget of the U.S. Government fiscal year 2010.  
Author:  United States. Office of Management and Budget.
Publisher, Date:  Washington : Executive Office of the President
View Online at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/summary.pdf

Title:  New era of responsibility : renewing America’s promise  
Author:  United States. President (2009- : Obama)
Web Link:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/a_new_era_of_responsibility2.pdf

New Fresh Book Lists for the Taking

Books for every mood… We’ve updated our book list brochures — all lists available on our website at  Reading Room — Book Lists. Award winners, Art In Fiction, and much more!  Find your next read in the Reading Room @ CMCL.

Sourcebook to Public Record Information, 4th Ed (2009)

The Sourcebook (REF 352.387 SOU 2009) provides detailed information on how to retrieve public records at the county, state, and federal levels. Its directories of state, county and local agencies and record departments are excellent tools.

Armchair sleuthing, in crime and in art

I read mysteries, particularly ones that are have a strong sense of place. I’m very fond of two series set in Italy: Guido Brunetti of Venice (by Donna Leon; #1: Death at La Fenice) and Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen series (#1: Ratking). I’ve had a chance to visit that country, and I read both to get into a bit of the culture and atmosphere of old cities. They also speak to more modern conceits as the Mafia, government corruption, and how “business as usual” is different  than (and sometimes similar to)  where I live. I spent my tourist time in Florence, and those books helped me to visualize what it is like to live in places like Venezia, Siena or Firenze. Recently I read two non-fiction books that connected strongly with my memories of that trip to Italy. Pick one up, sit back with a vin santo to sip, and enjoy!

The monster of Florence / Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi. New York : Grand Central Pub., 2008
New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston teams up with Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to present a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy. This is a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide–and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi are caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Dark water : flood and redemption in the city of masterpieces … / Clark, Robert : Doubleday, c2008.
Ostensibly about the floods of 1966 that devastated so much of the cultural heart of Florence, Italy, it becomes a meditation on the relationship of a city to art and its inevitable conflicts with the river it embraces, and how the city and its art is perceived by the rest of the world.

Get out to Wordstock this Weekend!

The yearly book extravaganza that that is Wordstock is underway – check out all the events happening in the next three days, with readings and writers’ workshops, poetry slams and gala balls (Go to the dance at the Text Ball at the Left Bank Building), or the Oregon Book Awards on Sunday night. The Book Fair is open Saturday and Sunday at the Oregon Convention Center: check the schedule, read what people are saying and thinking  at the festival blog, and come on out to the biggest book celebration in Portland!