More Books to Read: Learn How to Make Soap

The Soapmaker's Companion tops the list of new nonfiction offered by the Noe Valley Sally Brunn Library this month. Or you can check out the book on how to start a magazine. In addition to books, the branch offers videos and CDs, Internet access, and an archive and index to the Noe Valley Voice. The library, at 451 Jersey St. near Castro, is open Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesdays, 1 to 9 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Fridays, 1 to 6 p.m.; and Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m. If you want to find out the availability of a book, call 695-5095.
Adult Fiction
In Blood Work, Michael Connelly's latest thriller, a detective returns from early retirement to tackle an unsolved murder.
Comanche Moon is the final volume in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove saga. And Texas Rangers Gus and Call are still struggling to defend the Western frontier.
Grace Notes, by Irish writer Bernard Maclaverty, portrays a woman composer torn between her life and her art.
In Mary Gordon's novel Spending, a middle-aged painter becomes involved with a broker who collects her work.
Annotations by Roberta Greifer
Adult Nonfiction
The Soapmaker's Companion, by Susan Miller Cavitch, shows how to combine scents, oils, and colors to create a variety of cobblestone, liquid, and transparent soaps.
In Starting and Running a Successful Newsletter or Magazine, author Cheryl Woodard, a cofounder of PC Magazine, PC World, and MacWorld, offers practical tips on everything from staff and budgeting to circulation, advertising, and web site design.
Barbara Hemphill's Taming the Paper Tiger is a guide to uncluttering your life. It has chapters on filing, "wastebasketing," family records, taxes, and home computers.
Wounds of Passion is a moving memoir by African-American feminist Bell Hooks about her journey from "mourner at the heartbreak church" to writer and artist.
Annotations by Lea Burroughs
Lapsits, Stories, and Films
Babies and toddlers and their parents are invited for songs and stories at the Wednesday lapsits, 7 p.m., on April 1, 8, 22, and 29.
Preschool story time for children 3 to 5 is
at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays April 7 and 21.
The library will show films for kids ages 3 to 5 on Tuesday, April 28, at 10 and 11 a.m.
Children's Fiction
A mother rabbit does everything right in caring for her babies in Rabbits and Raindrops, by Jim Arnosky. Ages 3 to 5.
Arthur wants to play "Deep, Dark Sea" on the computer so much that he disobeys his mother, but all ends well in Arthur's Com-puter Disaster, by Marc Brown. Ages 3 to 6.
In Lili Backstage by Rachel Isadora, a young girl visits many people who do behind-the-scenes jobs at a dance theater, including her grandpa. Ages 5 to 8.
Two brothers are forced to deal with the loss of a special elderly friend in Eve Bunt-ing's On Call Back Mountain. Ages 6 to 9.
After a sudden sandstorm in the Sahara separates him from his father and their camel herd, Ali is helped by a Berber goatherd in Ali, Child of the Desert, by Jonathan London. Ages 5 to 8.
In Losers, Inc., by Claudia Mills, 12-year-old Ethan experiences competitive feelings toward his brother, a crush on the attractive new student teacher, and an increase in self-esteem. Ages 10 and up.
In Kristine Franklin's Lone Wolf, Perry has grown accustomed to his isolated life with his father, but after the Pestalozzi family moves in nearby, he becomes aware of feelings he had been burying for years. Ages 10 and up.
Children's Nonfiction
In Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man, author David A. Adler describes the life of a hard-working and unpretentious man who was also a great baseball player. Ages 7 to 10.
Children's annotations by Carol Small