Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.Hosted by A Striped Armchair


The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl

Ree Drummand

Blogger-turned-author Drummond gives readers a slice of frontier life in this likeable-enough collection of recipes and dispatches from the Oklahoma ranch she shares with her husband and children. Replicating the step-by-step photography that made her blog such a hit, Drummond walks readers through dishes ranging from simple-Guacamole, Chili, Artichoke Dip-to more complex, such as from-scratch Cinnamon Rolls and Sherried Tomato Soup. Drummond's careful coaching will help anyone intimidated by the kitchen fearlessly crank out favorites like Chicken Fried Steak, Meat Loaf and Rib Eye Steak with Whiskey Cream Sauce. While the recipes are reliable home cooking standards, relentless references to her husband, known as the Marlboro Man, range from distracting to juvenile, giving what could have been a comfort food classic the feel of a junior-high class project.



The Passage

Justin Cronin

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.





So Cold The River

Michael Koryda

It started with a documentary. The beautiful Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to unearth the life story of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose childhood is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job, even though the only clues to Bradford's past are his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life.

In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary past--a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once intermingled. Long derelict, the hotel has just been restored to its former grandeur.

But something else has been restored too--a long-forgotten evil that will stop at nothing to settle a decades-old score. And with every move, Eric inches closer to the center of the building storm.