All Sorts.

Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett. A word to the publisher: we purchased this book to fill a hole in our series holdings, and this binding was the only one available through our distributor. Please stop making (p)rebinds. You make us pay four times the cost of a paperback for a book that is... a paperback, but remade with hard covers. Only those hard covers won't protect the book, because you didn't reformat the printing to be hardbound-friendly. In order to see the last word on every single line of every single even-numbered page and the first word on every single line of every single odd-numbered page, the reader has to open the book passed the point of regular, good-for-the-spine openness. Because of this hard use, the book won't last any longer than a poor old regular paperback copy, and, because you made us pay more for it, we won't be able to afford another $17 mass-market-sized copy to replace it. Stick with the sorts of mass markets we can get for $3.59 through our distributor, and we'll just replace them as needed every few years.

Super Mario Galaxy, by Nintendo. This is a must for Mario games fans, although I must admit I couldn't figure out the point of the game, exactly. The kids really enjoyed it, and there were lots of lights and colors, plus I didn't see any violent bits, which is nice. It's rated "E" and had lots of fun noises.

What the Dog Saw (and other adventures), by Malcolm Gladwell; read by the author. I wanted to like this audiobook because it's the right kind of listening for me-- several shorter nonfiction stories but all interesting and thought provoking. I listened to the first disc, and then the same thing that always happens happened-- I was halfway through the second story, the disc ended, I never bothered to put in the other disc, and then I forgot about it entirely. They should make these so that there's once chapter/section/etc. per disc, so I can just put in the next one if I don't finish one, instead of trying to find the proper track for the next chapter.

Complete Guide to Embroidery Stitches: Photographs, Diagrams, and Instructions for Over 260 Stitches, by Reader's Digest; embroidery by Jennifer Campbell and Ann-Marie Bakewell. This is probably the best in our collection. It has very good instructions, both written and demonstrated, and the example photos are clear and skillfully done. There are a number of stitches in here that weren't demonstrated in the half-dozen other books I've already looked at.

100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth's Most Endangered Species, by Jeff Corwin. Because we've never met, I'm not too embarrassed to admit to you that I crushed on this guy early in high school. He's cute and rugged and cares about animals; what 13-year-old girl could say no? This book let me down, though, and I'm sad. The premise sounds very interesting, but the execution was poor. I only read about 30 pages and read snippets through the rest of the book, but the whole thing is kind of preachy. People will pick up this book because they want to know about the animals, not because they want another sermon on how evil we are to the environment. As a minor disappointment, about 100 pages is bibliography, suggested resources, thanks to the national parks, etc. Your 300+ page book is really closer to 200.