Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (Aunt Dimity)

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Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (Aunt Dimity)
Nancy Atherton
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0143036548

This gives some idea of the preoccupations and sensitivities of the Meredith mind. The farm comes first; everything else comes a distant second. Next of Kin traces how that rigid mindset is changed by a wholly unexpected agent: Judy's London roommate, Zoe. This disturbingly forthright character arrives for a weekend at Tideswell Farm bedecked in her signature purple hair, rows of silver earrings, and all-black boy's wardrobe. She declares that she likes farm life, and to Judy's horror, soon moves down from London to Tideswell, ultimately ending up in the paterfamilias's bed. As the Merediths find their old ways failing them, Zoe teaches the family how to live with her own odd mixture of honesty and lawlessness. Trollope's books usually move with a nice combination of introspection and action. Next of Kin, on the other hand, holds still--Zoe has to all but goad the Meredith family into the happy ending she has in mind. This stillness makes for a quietly and surprisingly satisfying read. --Claire Dederer

Caro's friends, neighbors and family are devastated by her too-early death (a brain tumor), and one could accurately say she is gone but not forgotten. In Trollope's own trademark way, we learn that Caro profoundly affected everyone in her extended circle--and not always for the good.

Who was Caro? Did she love her silent, taciturn farmer husband Robin, who bears a weight of responsibility that would break most people? And what about Robin's charming, but ultimately feckless brother Joe? What was between him and Caro, and why can he not find solace in his young family?

Solace is not to be had for Judy either: The twentysomething adopted daughter of Caro and Robin is beside herself with grief, and deeply angry at her father for seemingly neglecting his perfect wife.

As Trollope does so brilliantly, she lets us view the re-shifting and uncomfortable emotions of Caro's family from a child's eye point of view, in this case, the sensitive, 3-year-Hughie, Joe's son. There are only two people in the book who grab life to the fullest, as Caro is purported to have done. One is little Hughie's baby sister, Rose, whose sturdy little soul brooks no interference. She is, simply, a force to be reckoned with. Her adult counterpart is the hippie-ish Zoe, flatmate of the self-pitying Judy, and the ultimate, unlikely catalyst for the family to come to terms with its grief and see Caro for what she really was, warts and all.

This is one of the darker of Trollope's books, but as always, well-written and, in my case, hard to put down. It makes the reader think hard about perception and reality, and the intangible nature of love--both romantic and family.

Scout-Officer John Leeming knew from the very start that his reconnaissance mission deep into enemy territory would likely be a one-way trip. But, after he crash-lands on a far distant planet and becomes a prisoner of ruthless aliens, he knows he can't just give up. Armed with only a piece of wood, a coil of copperlike wire, his quick wits, and an imaginary ally called Eustace, Leeming embarks on a brilliant campaign to gain his freedom--and undermine the alien war effort, too. This original, full-length version of one of Russell's most popular stories, "Plus X," is amusing, adventurous, fast moving, and razor sharp. Poking fun at bone-headed and inflexible bureaucrats and institutions, it ranks among his very best work.

The Halls of Invertebrate Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History display the world's greatest fossil collection and have long been a treasured landmark in New York; they currently attract about 1.5 million visitors each year. Dinosaurs fascinate people of all ages. A look at the Museum's giant Barosaurus skeleton rising up on its hid legs to face a predator, or at the specimen of the fierce Tyrannosaurus rex, enables us to journey back in time to imagine even earlier animals that lived as long as hundreds of millions of years ago. Most fossils are not actual bones but mineralized replicas of an animal's hard parts, yet they enable us to see that vertebrate animals, including humans, share an evolutionary heritage that includes the smallest jawless fish who lived 500 million years ago as well as massive dinosaurs, and mammals of the Ice Age such as wooly mammoths and saber-toothed cats.

All of these specimens and hundreds more are collected in the spectacular, newly renovated fossil halls at the Museum. This book, liberally illustrated with beautiful new color and archival photography, and artwork and graphics produced especially for the renovated exhibits, is an in-depth look at the evolution of vertebrate animals in the collection. In an incisive, behind-the-scenes text, paleontologist Lowell Dingus discusses the earliest specimens: fish, amphibians, and primitive reptiles that represent evolutionary starting points for major groups; the popular saurischian dinosaurs, including the seventeen-ton Apatosaurus (once called Brontosaurus) skeleton; and ornithischian dinosaurs such as the horned Triceratops. He concludes with the mammal halls, where animals as diverse as the finbacked Dimetrodon, mastodons, and, after primates, our closest "next of kin"-- bats-- are shown to be related by one hole in the skull behind the eye socket. This modification illustrates the contemporary approach to evolution that readers will learn about called cladistics, which establishes animal relationships based on unique shared anatomical changes that were inherited over the course of time. The Museum galleries are organized to reflect how this approach has been used to reconstruct the family tree of vertebrate evolution: walking along the main pathway through the fossil halls is like walking along the trunk of the vertebrate evolutionary tree.

The first of the seven halls was opened in 1877 and featured ornate columns, ironworks, high ceilings, and large arched windows with spectacular views of Central Park. A ten-year restoration project has now returned the halls to their original grandeur and redesigned the fossil installations. This volume celebrates the dynamic fossil displays and the magnificent architecture of the American Museum of Natural History; it also introduces provocative questions about long-extinct species and the mysteries of life on Earth.

A tractor jackknifes. E.R. nurse Jackie Kellison's car is slammed into the ensuing pileup. She climbs free and rushes amid the flames and wreckage to help others. And then Jackie hears a baby cry. . .

Jackie Kellson pulls the injured baby from the wreckage as motorcycle policeman Casey Guthrie reaches the scene. The woman in the car is dead. With no time to waste, Casey transports Jackie and the infant to the E.R. on his motorbike. But attempts to find the baby girl's identity lead to a chilling conclusion--the woman in the car was a kidnapper. The baby's fate is now in the hands of Jackie and Casey. . .and in their hearts.