Okay ... I feel a bit better knowing that I didn't get stupid
Someone mentioned going though the list of books to find the new one and then adding it to the shelf. Unless I'm wrong (again) that's easier said than done ... you can't go though the book list in the library and <edit> a book title ... this would be handy since you can sort by <most recent>. You still have to do this by selecting a shelf and then scrolling though the whole list.
The biggest problem with this is that you have to do this for each shelf/book.
Question: Would rooting the device make me feel any better about this issue? I'm considering just for the browser. Reading some of the rooting information leaves me thinking that it's not quite ready for primetime?