Publisher Comments
The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet , looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.

And yet...

As in all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate — and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort — and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

Review
"The darkest and most unsettling installment yet....[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince] pulls together dozens of plot strands from previous volumes, underscoring how cleverly and carefully J. K. Rowling has assembled this giant jigsaw puzzle of an epic....The achievement of the Potter books is the same as that of the great classics of children's literature, from the Oz novels to The Lord of the Rings : the creation of a richly imagined and utterly singular world, as detailed, as improbable and as mortal as our own." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 

Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons
Lynn Peril

Publisher Comments
From board games to beauty pageants, a smart, witty, pop-culture history of the perilous path to achieving the feminine ideal. Deluged by persuasive advertisements and meticulous (though often misguided) advice experts, women from the 1940s to the 1970s were coaxed to "think pink" when they thought of what it meant to be a woman. Attaining feminine perfection meant conforming to a mythical standard, one that would come wrapped in an adorable pink package, if those cunning marketers were to be believed. With wise humor and a savvy eye for curious, absurd, and at times wildly funny period artifacts, Lynn Peril gathers here the memorabilia of the era —from kitschy board games and lunch boxes to outdated advice books and health pamphlets—and reminds us how media messages have long endeavored to shape women's behavior and self-image, with varying degrees of success. Vividly illustrated with photographs of vintage paraphernalia, this entertaining social history revisits the nostalgic past, but only to offer a refreshing message to women who lived through those years as well as those who are coming of age now.

Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
Riverbend

Review
"Iraqi women's voices have been virtually silent since the fall of Baghdad. Yet four months after Saddam's statue toppled in April 2003, the pseudonymous Riverbend, a Baghdad native then 24 years old, began blogging about life in the city in dryly idiomatic English and garnered an instant following that rivals Salam Pax's Where Is Raed? This year's worth of Riverbend's commentary — passionate, frustrated, sarcastic and sometimes hopeful — runs to September 2004. Before the war, Riverbend was a computer programmer ('yes, yes... a geek'), living with her parents and brother in relative affluence; as she chronicles the privations her family experiences under occupation, there is a good deal of 'complaining and ranting' about erratic electricity, intermittent water supplies, near daily explosions, gas shortages and travel restrictions. She rails against the interim governing council ('the puppet government') and Bush and his administration — and is sardonic on Islamic fundamentalism: as Al Sadr and his followers begin to emerge, Riverbend quotes the Carpenters's 'We've Only Just Begun.' But Riverbend is most compelling when she gives cultural object lessons on everything from the changing status of Iraqi women to Ramadan, the Iraqi educational system, the significance of date palms and the details of mourning rituals. Just as fascinating are the mundane facts of daily life, like her unsuccessful attempt to go back to work — no one would guarantee the safety of a woman in the workplace. The blog continues at riverbendblog.blogspot.com; like this book, it offers quick takes on events as they occur, from a perspective too often overlooked, ignored or suppressed. First serial to Ms. Magazine. (May 2) " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)