the NMH Library Blog

Really Good Books

My new favorites (at least for this week, until I read more) are:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Think Survivor (as in the TV show), but to the death, and the fortunes of your community riding on your performance. 

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

 Another post-apocalyptic dystopian novel.  I'm on  roll with them lately.  Who would think the future on another planet could be so rural and folksey? 

The Graveyard Book by  Neil Gaiman ; with illustrations by Dave McKean

Toddler escapes murderer, wanders into a graveyard, and is raised by ghosts.  Nuff said.

Come and get 'em @ your library.                    - Alison Ernst, Librarian

NEW NEW NEW!!!

Check out (literally and figuratively) recently acquired material at the Schauffler Library. 

For New Books click here

New Movies, here

        

New Music

 

New Reference

NEW BookPicturing the Promise

Picturing the Promise (check title for availability)

In 1911 Addison Scurlock opened a photography studio in Washington, D.C., and went on to chronicle the aspirations and ambitions of the black community into the 1990s. Later joined by his sons, Robert and George, themselves all part of the rising middle class of segregated Washington, Scurlock recorded the finer moments of black life—portraits of wealth and comfort, celebrations of marriages and new homes, political and social achievements. As the city changed and grew, with the black population swelling, the Scurlocks chronicled the growth and later decline of black businesses, the change from a middle class forced to develop its own institutions within a segregated society to an influx of poor migrants from the South with less connection to those institutions, and the social and political tumult wrought by the civil rights movement. Photographs include the famous (Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington, Ralph Bunche, W. E. B. DuBois, and Muhammad Ali) as well as the influential but perhaps less well known (business owners, churchgoers, civic leaders, members of high society). With more than 100 images, this book is a proud celebration of a vibrant community from the early to the late twentieth century. --Vanessa Bush

NEW Book Snark

Snark :  A Polemic in Seven Fits (check title for availabilty) 
2009

Library Journal

( February 01, 2009 )

"It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation," exclaims Denby (Great Books), longtime film critic for The New Yorker. The noun snark, an apparent conflation of "snide" and "remark," harkens back to Lewis Carroll's fictional animal, though there's no need to "hunt" for this incarnation of the beast; it's ubiquitous according to Denby, and it's nasty: "the most dreadful style going, and ultimately debilitating." Not to be confused with satire, which at least has human betterment at its heart, snark plays on others' vulnerabilities to no good end. Snark is not a recent phenomenon; Denby traces its origins back to ancient Greece and is not himself above naming names, counting writers James Wolcott, Joe Queenan, Tom Wolfe, and Maureen Dowd (who actually gets a whole "fit," as the book's sections are called, to herself) among its better-known current practitioners. Alice Roosevelt Longworth might not have appreciated it, but this relatively brief, witty (a quality he claims that snark lacks) work is highly recommended for all libraries. -Ellen Gilbert, Princeton, NJ

NEW BOOK Chill

Chill (click on title to check availability)

By Deborah Reber

Booklist

October 01, 2008

Reber, an advice columnist and author of other self-help books for teens, offers an informative and practical guide to coping with everyday?nbsp;pressures. Between school, homework, extracurricular activities, a part-time job, maintaining a social life, and meeting the demands of parents, today's teens can be stretched to their breaking points. Reber discusses the toll stress can take on one's mental and physical health and offers advice on how teens can identify the sources of stress in their lives. She explains methods of reducing stress, such as time management, organization, prioritizing, creating a support system, and learning how to say no to the people and things that cause stress. Reber also offers excellent suggestions for ways of coping with anxiety, such as meditation and relaxation techniques, journaling, and exercise. Conversational in tone and engagingly written, Reber offers real-life examples,?nbsp;quizzes,?nbsp;and practical suggestions. Teens feeling overwhelmed with obligations and responsibilities will breathe a sigh of relief?nbsp;upon finding this pragmatic guide.--Sullivan, Ed

NEW BOOK Cuba

Cuba (click on title to check availability)

By Timothy Bernard

Booklist

 August 01, 2008  

*Starred Review* Cuba holds a unique place in world history, and in our imaginations, but we've known little about the island nation's visual arts until the arrival of this dynamic joint production of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Cuba's Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and Fototeca de Cuba. Incisive essays, useful time lines, and 450 ravishing illustrations chronicle a century and a half of Cuban drawing, painting, graphic art, and photographs. Cuban art thrives on diversity and a transcendent belief in life for life's sake. From romantic landscapes and sensual portraits to the complex paintings of Wilfredo Lam and the powerful political art of Alberto Pena and Marcelo Pogolotti, Cuban painting draws on influences African, Caribbean, and European to respond to conquest and war, the tyranny of poverty and ideology. Gorgeous art deco magazine covers embody a sense of hope and love of glamour, while in-your-face posters protest a far more complicated reality, and potent?nbsp;photographs document?nbsp;high-rolling nightlife,?nbsp;the fervor of the revolution, and sweet and painful moments on the?nbsp;streets and in the?nbsp;countryside. This momentous, dazzling volume interweaves history, biography,?nbsp;and artistic expression to?nbsp;explicate Cuba's distinctive vibrancy and glorious creativity.

NEW BOOK Looking for Lincoln

Looking for Lincoln (click on title to check availability)

By Alfred Knopf

From Publishers Weekly

 The Kunhardts use the family's vast collection of Lincoln photographs, started in the late 19th century by Frederick Hill Meserve, combined with concise commentary and valuable first-hand accounts, to illustrate Lincoln's postmortem life. The Kunhardts trace the circuitous route by which the assassinated head of state morphed into a cherished figure as much of myth as of history. The profusely and beautifully illustrated volume-the companion to a PBS special to air in winter 2009-is loaded with rarities: never before seen letters, photos from the 1901 unearthing and re-interment of Lincoln's remains, and first-hand reminiscences from numerous Lincoln intimates, all of them rich with telling detail about the man. Fascinating anecdotes abound, such as Robert Lincoln's shunning of the dedication of the memorial housing the presumed Lincoln birth cabin, which he said commemorated nothing but the "degradation and uncleanliness" of his father's humble beginnings. All in all, the Kunhardts' book represents a visual and literary feast for all devotees of the sacred national idol that is Lincoln. 910 color photos and illus. 

Ipods! Books! Books! Ipods!

Love your ipod?

Love listening to books?

Bring your ipod to the library and let us load it with a book to listen to in the car, on the plane, while you run, as you walk the dog, while you clean your room...

Don't have an ipod?

Borrow one from the library!

What books does the library have for ipods? Click here!

Warrior Girls (click on title to check availability)

by Michael Sokolove

Booklist

( June 01, 2008 ) 

Roughly a month before the publication of this book, a university softball player, having just hit a home run, missed tagging first base; when she reversed direction to make the tag, her right knee gave out, and she collapsed. The story made national news because members of the opposing team carried her around the bases, but it also lends an air of immediacy to Sokolove's examination of the prevalence and sometimes life-altering effect of injuries in women's sports. He examines the differences in male and female anatomy, compares the competitiveness in men's and women's sports, and focuses on a handful of specific individuals to explore how an athlete's drive for perfection can lead to disaster.?nbsp;Although some may accuse the book of gender stereotyping, the charge doesn't hold water. Sokolove certainly does say that differences in body structure may make women more prone to certain types of injury, but he bases his argument on physiology not gender. This well-researched, well-reasoned, and forcefully argued?nbsp;book makes an important contribution to the literature of sports.--Pitt, David Copyright 2008 Booklist

NEW Children's BookFancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words from Accessories to Zany

Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words from Accessories to Zany (click on title to check availability)

by Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser

Publishers Weekly
April 07, 2008

Building on O'Connor and Glasser's bestselling series, ultimate girly-girl Fancy Nancy makes vocabulary glamorous in this A-Z compendium ("That's fancy for collection"). As O'Connor explains in a foreword, "When you use [a fancy word] in a sentence, it's like adding sprinkles to vanilla ice cream!" The chosen words are generally helpful (hostess, wardrobe, understated) rather than precocious (ooh la la!), and reflect Fancy Nancy's special style. For example, to introduce the word "improvise," as in "I wanted a canopy bed so I had to improvise. I used a sheet, a mop, and a broom," Glasser shows the minimaven lolling in bed with bonbons and a tea tray, broomsticks supporting a canopy of perfectly ruffled gingham. Ooh la la, indeed! Ages 4-7. 

NEW BOOKChocolate Cake Sutra

Chocolate Cake Sutra(click on title to check availability)

By Geri Larkin

Publishers Weekly

 September 25, 2006  

Because everyone yearns for a recipe for a fruitful life, many may gravitate to this friendly, accessible "cookbook." A Buddhist priest and confessed chocolate cake devotee, Larkin (Stumbling Toward Enlightenment) started Still Point Zen center in inner city Detroit. In the best Zen tradition, she recounts many personal anecdotes that find their flavor percolating in that everyday existence. These stories rise to make vivid points in focused, economical chapters. Larkin points us toward joy, extreme ethics, tolerance, a capacity to keep going, clear headedness, a penchant for surprise adventure, and wisdom. Her previous career as a management consultant may contribute to her breezy, hip conversational style that may or may not stand the test of time. But such lingo as "Even after years of attending or leading long retreats, there is always a moment when most of me says, `This so sucks. I'm gone,' " may perfectly ring the unstruck bell to some modern ears. Her heart offerings, however, have an eternal chime of truth: "Everything and everyone is holy. And the point of our being on this sweet planet is to be of service to all of it. And when we understand this truth in our bones, joy fills our hearts."  

NEW BOOK 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

1001 Albums (click on title to check availability)

By Robert Dimery

From Publishers Weekly
This bookshelf-busting testament to music geeks' mania for lists is about as comprehensive a "best-of" as any sane person could want. Editor Dimery and the army of 90 music critics he drafted to compile this beast begin in the 1950s with Frank Sinatra, end in 2005 with The White Stripes and cover every genre, sub-genre, fad, flash-in-the-pan and musical movement that hit in the intervening years, taking each on their own merits. So, noise-and-terror group Lightning Bolt (featuring "a 'singer' who barks through a contact microphone taped inside a gimp mask") gets lauded as a "truly challenging listening experience," Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" gets dubious props for turning "heavy metal into a pop genre that women would be able to love" and Yoko Ono gets ignored. Arranged chronologically and with an excellent index, the book's a pleasure to peruse. Hundreds of jacket art reproductions accompany original track listings, and the critic-penned album summaries are brisk, informed, devoid of snark and full of argument-ending trivia. As with any list, there are bound to be glaring omissions and contentious inclusions, though Dimery buffets the book somewhat by disqualifying from consideration compilations, greatest hits albums and most soundtracks. For music lovers, it doesn't get much better

New McNaughton Books

There's a new batch of books at the library, through the McNaughton Collection, a leased collection of current bestsellers and popular titles to provide leisure reading for the campus community.

Stop by, browse, and enjoy!

                                                                                                                - Alison Ernst, Librarian

NEW BOOK Reading the OED

Reading the OED (click on title to check availability)

By Ammon Shea

Library Journal

( June 01, 2008  

This chronicle reads half like the journey of a madman and half like a word-of-the-day calendar. In it, Shea (coauthor, Depraved English; Insulting English) wittily describes his headache-inducing descent into the 21,730 pages of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which he spent a full year reading. Shea sees a dictionary as a work of literature whose words are all alphabetized, and here, he offers readers a rare glimpse into the most obscure corners of the English language, from oddities such as cellarhood (to be a cellar) to the curious quisquilious (garbagelike). Many of these words are modern yet underused gems, but some are so obscure that the OED does not even include a corresponding pronunciation key owing to the word's lack of circulation in recent history. Regular use of these bizarre, sometimes long-forgotten words, writes Shea, will neither inspire advanced social status nor wisdom. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--David L. Reynolds, Cleveland P.L. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. 

My favorite book about writing

Annie Lamott's accessible essays on writing are humorous as well as instructive.  Her chapters on first drafts is my hands-down favorite.  For anyone who has struggled with writing anxiety, this is encouraging as ell as enjoyable.     - Alison Ernst, Librarian

Bird by bird : some instructions on writing and life

                   

NEW BOOK A Wolf at the Table

A Wolf at the Table (click on title to check availability)

By Augusten Burroughs

From Publishers Weekly

A searing, emotional portrait of a son who wants nothing more than the love his father will not grant him, Burroughs's latest memoir (after 2004's Dry) is indeed powerful. Absent is the wry humor of Running with Scissors and the absurd poignancy of Burroughs's years living with his mother's Svengali-like psychiatrist. Instead, Burroughs focuses on the years he lived both in awe and fear of his philosophy professor father in Amherst, Mass.

Oddest Book Titles

Article Link

Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, People Who Don't Know They're Dead, and more...

NEW BOOK America at Home

America at Home:  A Close-Up Look at How We Live (click on title to check availability)
Created by Rick Smolan '68 and Jennifer Erwitt

An interesting photography project by NMH alumnus, Rick Smolan.

From Amazon.com...
Americans were invited to simultaneously contribute their own images via a series of daily snapshots each day throughout the week. These shots covered topics such as: morning rush, what’s for dinner, and evening family rituals. Participants received daily emails with assignment instructions and also took general photos of what makes their home special. The public was able to sign in and upload them at www.MyAmericaAtHome.com.

Check this book out at the library. If you decide you like it and want your own copy or a copy to give as a gift, you can have your copy published with your own photo on the cover! Cool! Visit:
www.myamericaathome.com/customcover/upload

Heavy Equipment: Upclose

If you have a boy/girl who is interested in bulldozers, backloaders, dump trucks, or any big, noisy heavy equipment this is the book for them.  This oversize photo book has some 2 page spreads of what some consider the coolest machines around.  Check it out for the summer!

Heavy Equipment: Upclose by Abramson   (J Pic Abramson.) 

NEW BOOK The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian    (Click title to check availability)

by Sherman Alexie

Screenwriter, novelist and poet, Alexie bounds into YA with what might be a Native American equivalent of Angela's Ashes, a coming-of-age story so well observed that its very rootedness in one specific culture is also what lends it universality, and so emotionally honest that the humor almost always proves painful. Presented as the diary of hydrocephalic 14-year-old cartoonist and Spokane Indian Arnold Spirit Jr., the novel revolves around Junior's desperate hope of escaping the reservation. As he says of his drawings, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He transfers to a public school 22 miles away in a rich farm town where the only other Indian is the team mascot. Although his parents support his decision, everyone else on the rez sees him as a traitor, an apple ("red on the outside and white on the inside"), while at school most teachers and students project stereotypes onto him: "I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other." Readers begin to understand Junior's determination as, over the course of the school year, alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors lead to the deaths of close relatives. Unlike protagonists in many YA novels who reclaim or retain ethnic ties in order to find their true selves, Junior must separate from his tribe in order to preserve his identity. Jazzy syntax and Forney's witty cartoons examining Indian versus White attire and behavior transmute despair into dark humor; Alexie's no-holds-barred jokes have the effect of throwing the seriousness of his themes into high relief. Ages 14-up.. Publishers Weekly  August 20, 2007 (National Book Award Winner).

On Display

NEW BOOK I'm Looking Through You

I'm Looking Through You    (Click title to check availability)

by Jennifer Boylan

Library Journal
February 1, 2008

On the surface, this multifaceted memoir could be described as a story about a teenage boy growing up in a haunted house located on the Main Line outside of Philadelphia. In truth, Boylan, the renowned transgendered author of She's Not There, has written a delightful book about a variety of issues that have touched a childhood full of friendships, adventures, and odd encounters with spirits in her family home. She uses the metaphor of "being haunted" throughout to illustrate not only her boyhood experiences but also the memories that have shaped her as a person as she struggled with her gender identity throughout most of her life. Boylan's depictions of her Irish grandmother and her relationships with her father and sister are particularly noteworthy. Her writing style is witty, self-deprecating, entertaining, and often poignant, especially when describing family and friends who have passed away. An adventure to read, this is highly recommended for all libraries.-Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll., Media, PA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Call no. 813.54 B696

NEW BOOK Nerds

Nerds    (Click title to check availability)

by David Anderegg

In this intriguing treatise, child therapist and psychology professor Anderegg takes a wry and well-rounded look at the legacy of everyone's (least) favorite schoolyard epithet, getting deep into the history of an idea as well as the nuts and bolts of childhood "stereotype acquisition." Beginning with a "Field Guide to Nerds" ("or Why Nerds are So Gay"), Anderegg considers typical nerd traits (and includes a "Nerd Test" copied from "Deluxe NERD Glasses" package copy), parses out the subtle but important differences between "nerd" (emphasizing appearance) and "geek" (emphasizing intelligence), looks at the cultural history and rising profile of American anti-intellectualism, from Ichabod Crane and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Seinfeld and Beauty and the Geek, as well as more recent developments in nerd-related medical diagnoses like autism and Asperger's. Knowledgeable, charming and self-deprecating throughout, Anderegg is at his best when discussing the specific cases of children he's worked with, but readers should be happy to tag along as he occasionally wanders off point (contemplating, say, the Freudian implications of his subject). For educators, therapists and others interested in child psychology, this makes an insightful, if perhaps overstuffed, resource.
From Publishers Weekly

Call no. 371.95 An22

NEW BOOK 24/7

24/7    (Click title to check availability)

by Jarice Hanson

Hanson provides a concise, readable overview of the impact of cell phones and the Internet on every aspect of our lives, from individual habits and relationships to national and international social and cultural norms. Cell phones and the Internet offer users an illusion of greater control over their lives, but they also lead to expectations and behavior changes that can cause stress and anxiety and threaten or at least alter social and political structures. Others have raised these issues, but Hanson has collected solid data from many sources, which she presents in clear, well-organized chapters spiced with good examples and anecdotes.... Highly recommended. General readers; students, upper-division undergraduates and up; faculty and practitioners.  Choice

Call no. 303.48 H198

NEW BOOK Listening is an Act of Love

Listening is an Act of Love   (Click title to check availability)

by Shōichi Aoki

From Publishers Weekly
Four years ago. StoryCorps set out to record an oral history of America with the voices of everyday people. This book is a collection of the most compelling excerpts from more than 10,000 interviews recorded, compiled by StoryCorps founder Isay (Flophouse), a radio documentary producer and MacArthur fellow. And they are compelling. Each one captures a moment in time—historical, emotional or personal—that make us who we are. As simple stories of humanity, each one has its own potency, with themes of family, love, dedication and struggle. In one of the most emotionally wrought stories, a father sits down with his daughter and remembers her late mother and older brother, who both died of cancer within months of each other. To gather the stories, StoryCorps provides a facility, recording equipment and a facilitator, then waits for people to invite loved ones, friends, grandparents to sit down for a 40-minute session. A copy of the tape is filed in the Library of Congress, and parts have aired on NPR. As Isay says, I realized how many people among us feel completely invisible, believe their lives don't matter, and fear they'll someday be forgotten. Photos. (Nov. 13)
Copyright

Call no. 973.92 L697i

NEW BOOK The Nine

The Nine (Check title for Availability)

by Jeffrey Toobin

From Publishers Weekly
It's not laws or constitutional theory that rule the High Court, argues this absorbing group profile, but quirky men and women guided by political intuition. New Yorker legal writer Toobin (The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson) surveys the Court from the Reagan administration onward, as the justices wrestled with abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gay rights and church-state separation. Despite a Court dominated by Republican appointees, Toobin paints not a conservative revolution but a period of intractable moderation. The real power, he argues, belonged to supreme swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor, who decided important cases with what Toobin sees as an almost primal attunement to a middle-of-the-road public consensus. By contrast, he contends, conservative justices Rehnquist and Scalia ended up bitter old men, their rigorous constitutional doctrines made irrelevant by the moderates' compromises. The author deftly distills the issues and enlivens his narrative of the Court's internal wranglings with sharp thumbnail sketches (Anthony Kennedy the vain bloviator, David Souter the Thoreauvian ascetic) and editorials (inept and unsavory is his verdict on the Court's intervention in the 2000 election). His savvy account puts the supposedly cloistered Court right in the thick of American life. (A final chapter and epilogue on the 2006–2007 term, with new justices Roberts and Alito, was unavailable to PW.) (Sept. 18)

Call no. 347.73 T617

NEW BOOK The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone

The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone (Check title for Availability)

by Shashi Tharoor

From Publishers Weekly
Bewildering diversity is the very essence of India, observes novelist and columnist Tharoor (The Great Indian Novel) in this engaging collection of essays, which tries to reconcile the country's clashing traditions with progress and liberalism. Hinduism's promiscuous openness to other beliefs and cultures makes it a model of secular tolerance, he argues, though Hindu fundamentalist bigotry is his favorite target. Tharoor also insists that ancient Indian science anticipated quantum mechanics, and praises his home state of Kerala for raising female literacy rates. (In a rare nostalgic note, he mourns the demise of the sari, then fences with a backlash of critical e-mail responses from pants-wearing women.) Most of all, he celebrates India's compatibility with the global economy, a stance that occasionally shades into business boosterism. Many pieces are drawn from Tharoor's columns and feature quick, sketchy takes on Indian cultural touchstones, from political corruption to Bollywood to cricket; his themes tend to be repeated rather than developed. But Tharoor's ready wit-an Indian without a horoscope is like an American without a credit card-and sympathetic insight combine in a fascinating portrait of Indian society. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Call no. 954.053 T329

NEW BOOK Optical Art

Patricia O'Brien,

NMH Librarian,

dresses to demo our new book,

Optical Art : Theory and Practice  by Rene Parola (Click on title to check availability)

New Book: On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey of the Harlem Renaissance

On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey through the Harlem Renaissance
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Abdul-Jabbar hopes [library conference]attendees would come see him "and get an idea that not all athletes who gain prominence are uneducated.  I hope to show them that it does work in the other way too; that people can go through college and play athletics and get a first-rate education."  He describes his role models, Jackie Robinson and Oscar Robertson, as "two great student athletes who went on to do great things as professionals," adding that "the whole idea of your education making you more of a man and more capable to give to society is something that all young people need to learn about."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's most recent book, "On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey through the Harlem Renaissance" is available in print and audio versions at the NMH Library.

Print
Audio

NEW BOOKS AUDIO BOOKS

Recently purchased by the library and ready for your listening pleasure...

The Allen Ginsberg Audio Collection
Billy Collins Live 
1984 by George Orwell
Beowulf by Robert K. Gordon, translator    
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon      
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book 1 by Philip Pullman 
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini         
Life of Pi by Yann Martel      
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Night by Elie Wiesel       
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd   
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell       
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston         
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Ask at the library to have any of these titles downloaded to an ipod. Have a great break!

NEW BOOK Fruits

Fruits      (Click title to check availability)

by Shōichi Aoki

Stylish Stephanie  loves this book!

From the Publisher:  Fruits, culled from the underground magazine of the same name, is Shoich Aoki's look at the outrageous street fashion of Japanese teenagers.
Fruits is a collection of Tokyo street fashion portraits from Japan's premier street fanzine of the same title. The 300 portraits of teenagers represent a unique documentation of the changing face of street fashion throughout the last decade.

Fruits is a collection of Tokyo street fashion portraits from Japan's premier street fanzine of the same name. 'Fruits' was established in 1994, by photographer Shoichi Aoki, initially as a project to document the growing explosion in street fashion within the suburbs of Tokyo.

NEW BOOK Artist to Artist

Artist to Artist  (Check Title for Availability)

In this remarkable anthology, twenty-three of the most honored and beloved picture book artists speak informally to children – sharing secrets about their art and how they began their adventures into illustration.

This beautiful event book features fold-out pages with photographs of each illustrator’s early work, their studios and materials, as well as sketches and finished art, creating an exuberant feast for the eye that will attract art-lovers of all ages! Self-portraits of each illustrator crown this important anthology that celebrates the artists and the art of the picture book.

Call Number: 741.642 Ar76

NEW BOOK The Arrival

The Arrival   (Check Title for Availability)

by Shaun Tan

An astonishing wordless graphic novel blends historical imagery with science-fiction elements to depict-brilliantly-the journey of an immigrant man from his terror-beset land of origin to a new, more peaceful home. Sepia-toned panels and turn-of-the-last-century dress and architecture seem to place readers in familiar territory-but fantastical images, including monumental cities, various bizarre forms of air transport and distinctly alien animals serve to unsettle both protagonist and readers, plunging the latter into the unsettling and often terrifying experience of being alone in a new land.

NEW BOOK The Book of Joby

The Book of Joby   by Mark Ferrari (Check Title for Availability)

From Booklist
*Starred Review* The prologue of Ferrari's first novel sweeps us into a monumental modern-day fantasy of good versus evil when Lucifer proposes a wager that he has made many times over the millennia—the same stupid bet, according to God. If he wins this time, God will have to destroy his Creation, and they will start over with what Lucifer considers an orderly, "virtuous" universe without free will.

NEW BOOK Sunday

Sunday (Check Title for Availability)

by Craig Harline

Sunday means different things to different people and different cultures. Some look forward to it, others dread it. In this delicious study of Sunday as a concept, Harline contrasts the various ways that Western cultures have looked on the seventh (or first) day of the week, emphasizing Sunday observances, not Sunday rules, especially in western Europe and the U.S. First, however, he examines the emergence of Sunday in the ancient Mediterranean before moving on to medieval and Catholic Europe. He examines a late-nineteenth-century French Sunday, when Parisians promenaded the broad avenues intending to be seen; a Belgian Sunday before the Great War; an English interwar Sunday, when churchgoing was important, but equally many chose to spend the time at home, while others went to the local pub; and the American Sunday of the 1950s, a time for watching sports, especially football and baseball, reading the Sunday paper, and viewing programs on that increasingly popular technological marvel, television. Fine popular social history for the general reader.

--June Sawyers Copyright 2007 Booklist

-Call Number 263.3 H227

NEW BOOK Notebooks

Notebooks (Check Title for Availability)

by Tennessee Williams

This magnificent tome is a treasure trove for Williams scholars and fans. Independent scholar Thornton not only tracked down Williams's early short stories and poems but often presents photo reproductions of the original manuscripts. A talented sleuth, Thornton cross-checks journal entries with letters Williams wrote to friends, offers minibiographies of people mentioned in the journals and has found photos of most of the cast of characters at the time they were in touch with Williams. Her detective work is fully one half of this massive book. (Williams's journal entries, from 1936 to 1958 and 1979 to 1981 run on the right-hand pages opposite Thornton's annotations.) As the playwright, according to Thornton, "modulated his tone and style to suit the recipient" of his voluminous correspondence, his journal reveals his authentic voice. These entries primarily showcase the budding artist who was plagued with insecurities, increasing drug dependency and an equally destructive addiction to celebrity, but his loyalty to his work remained so strong that he was still able to write The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof all between 1945 and 1955-the period that reflects the bulk of these notebooks.. Williams's dramatic life may be familiar to many, but thanks to Thornton's superb scholarship, his interior conflicts, motivations and drive are at last revealed. Photos.

--Publishers Weekly Jan 1, 2007

Call Number 812.52 W675yt

NEW BOOK Cape Wind

Cape Wind (Check Title for Availability)

by Wendy Williams

Cape Cod is a place of celebrated beauty and blueblood history. For such powerful and wealthy families as the Kennedys and Mellons, the cape's beaches are a treasured sanctuary. But because Massachusetts' population has grown, the state's aging power grid is under enormous pressure. Enter Jim Gordon, an energy entrepreneur who believed he had the perfect solution: an offshore wind farm. His 2001 Cape Wind proposal shocked and enraged Cape Cod's elite, and so began an epic battle that pits privilege against the common good in a stunning exposure of NIMBY (not in my backyard) hypocrisy. Journalists Williams, who lives on Cape Cod, and Whitcomb, who has family ties to the area, do a bang-up job of chronicling Gordon's tenacity in the face of the brazen machinations of various politicians, especially Senator Edward Kennedy and then governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. This true-life tale of a blinding love of place, outrageously irresponsible propaganda, shameful congressional maneuvering, and egregious social injustice is half farce, half political thriller, and altogether compelling. As the fight rages on, Cape Wind serves as a harbinger of future conflicts as we reluctantly consider alternatives to oil.

--Donna Seaman Copyright 2007 Booklist April 1, 2007

Call Number 333.9 W676

New Book Recommendation

Aloud!: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café Edited by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman

Compiled by poets who have been at the heart of this vibrant and original movement since its earliest days, Aloud! is an inclusive cross section of the most innovative and accomplished word artists from all parts of America, From New York to Nashville, Boston to L.A., a bohemian rhapsody of rap swagger is spreading across the land. As the New York Observer writes: "The poetry corpse is stirring," its healing heart is "a big, dark, brick-walled loft on Third Street and Avenue C called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. It's democratic, multicultural...sometimes funny, sometimes ribald. It has the vitality of vulgarity." So welcome to the inside of the explosion. We are, as Bob Holman declaims, "at the house for the tradition that has no home but your ear." Miguel Algarin, one of the Cafe's founders, knows there's an urgency among us: "We must listen to one another. We must respect one another's habits. And we must share the truth and integrity that the voice of the poet so generously provides."

 

New York City's Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a Lower East Side institution, is known for hosting poetry slams, or public recitals of poems competitively graded by the audience. This is participatory performance poetry with an urban groundswell behind it-oral, multicultural, political, uninhibited. But how does the poetry come across once it's been conventionally-and ``silently''-published? ``Hear this book with your eyes!'' exhorts coeditor Holman; in his rambling introduction, Algarin urges poetry as ``a living art,'' as if to fight off print's inertia. All readers won't be floored by the result, which includes lines and stanzas (by Mike Tyler, Edwin Torres, Willie Perdomo, Raul Salinas, others) that beg to be sung or shouted, and do not rest easy on the page. But the vitality of the collection is conspicuous even when its anarchy causes some impatience. A maximalist poetry-compounded of emotional drive, visceral detail, real-life words and rhythms-offers something vigorous even when it reads as virtually unedited. The voices collected are challenging.

Check out this incredibly wonderful collection of slam poetry int he library, call number 811.5408 AL73a)

New Book Recommendation

Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game - And How It Got that Way

By Philip E. Orbanes

The amazing story of how America's best-selling game helped shape our aspirations and captivated the world

In his account of the development of "the most significant money game in history" (200 million copies sold in 60 countries since 1935), former Parker Brothers vice president Orbanes (The Monopoly Companion) sets the game against a backdrop of political and economic events spanning a century. He introduces entrepreneurs and game inventors, beginning with Elizabeth Magie, who created the Landlord's Game in 1903 to educate people about Henry George's idea of a "single tax" on landlords (it even had a space called "No Trespassing/Go to Jail").

Initially unpublished, it circulated among game players in handmade copies on oilcloth. In 1930, Quakers in Atlantic City added local street names Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mediterranean to their handmade variation, which became the source of the Monopoly game that Charles Darrow marketed in 1934. Tracing this evolution, Orbanes covers collectors, foreign editions, memorabilia, licensing, copyrights and trademarks with fascinating details: Esquire magazine's Esky was the springboard for Monopoly's cartoon financier, and the metal tokens were inspired by the charms from charm bracelets that Darrow's 11-year-old niece used as game pieces.

Orbanes heightens the readability by interweaving his own personal story at Parker Brothers, which he joined in 1979, and judging Monopoly world tournaments throughout this lively chronicle that puts the iconic game in the context of a slice of social history. 

You have two choices: either 1. Read this book or 2. go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect 200 dollars. (call number 794 Or1)

New Book Recommendation

New York Botanical Garden

by Gregory Long (Editor), Anne Skillion, Kim E. Tripp, Todd Forrest, Barbara Thiers

A verdant jewel and National Historic Landmark in the heart of New York City, the New York Botanical Garden is cherished by residents and visitors alike. Here, the institution's remarkable history and unparalleled collections are presented in one magnificent volume-the only comprehensive history of any of the world's botanical gardens-sure to inspire plant lovers, home gardeners, would-be horticulturists and scientists, and armchair naturalists alike.

Through hundreds of beautiful photographs commissioned especially for this book and reproductions of rare botanical art, readers can tour the Botanical Garden's 250 historic acres and admire the more than one million living plants in its care. The book's engaging text describes the origins and purpose of a botanical garden, and provides a fascinating look at the Garden's groundbreaking scientific discoveries since its founding in 1891.

NEW BOOK in the library

 

But Enough About Me:  A Jersey's Girl's Unlikely Adventures

by Jancee Dunn

Known for her celebrity profiles, journalist Dunn blends interviewing tips, dirt-digging secrets and memoir-type snippets in a mix that's tough to define, but a delight to read. As a frequent writer for Rolling Stone and contributor to Vanity Fair, GQ and Vogue, Dunn can reach an array of stars and has the anecdotes to prove it. She details ducking the paparazzi with Mel Gibson, eating in Dolly Parton's kitchen and posing for three minutes as Ben Affleck's girlfriend to prove a point about how quickly gossip spreads. Refreshingly, she maintains an "Aw, shucks" quality that has become her work's hallmark. By providing a zesty glimpse at herNew Jersey childhood and young adulthood, Dunn offers a grounded counterpoint to the breezy tales of pop idol handling. Even after rising in the ranks at Rolling Stone, Dunn is mildly astounded that a Jersey girl who still slips phrases like "Yeah, right!" into her conversation should be shaking in her ritzy hotel room after being berated by Flashdance icon Jennifer Beals for asking about her personal life. Amusing, clever and affable, Dunn shares a satisfying memoir-turned-celebrity dish.

This charming collection of wit and wisdom can be found on the new book shelf (call number 071.3092 D922)

NEW Book Recommendation

Death By Pad Thai and Other Unforgettable Meals: 20 Great Writers on Romance,  Disappointment, Family, Celebration, and the Meals That Inspired Them Edited and with an introduction by Douglas Bauer

Food isn’t just a gustatory pleasure; it is the stuff of life. At its best and most memorable, a meal becomes a story—and a story becomes a feast. In this collection of essays by some of the country’s finest writers, food is the central player in memories both exquisite and excruciating. Steve Almond recounts the gleeful daylong preparation of a transcendent lobster pad thai dish. Sue Miller reveals that after a lifetime of practical cooking, she is finally fed by a man who presents food as an offering, made just for her. Aimee Bender ponders her lifelong envy of what everyone else is having for lunch. Richard Russo relates the celebratory day he and his wife spent eating their way through haute Manhattan —and departing utterly famished.

Expertly compiled and edited by Douglas Bauer—including pieces by Amy Bloom, Peter Mayle, Jane and Michael Stern, Ann Packer, and Andre Dubus III—this unforgettable collection presents food as education, test, reward, bait, magnet, and, most of all, gift. Gathered here are meals that sate our most complex palate, the appreciation of life. Personality-driven food writing has blossomed of late.

As novelist Ann Packer puts it in one of the 20 sparkling autobiographical sketches in Death by Pad Thai (paperback): ''The story of how one eats is the story of how one lives....'' Eating (and living) during lean times is a favorite subject. As a single mom, Sue Miller wistfully recalls shoveling budget mac 'n' cheese into her famished teenage son, while Richard Russo relives a bank-breaking dinner to celebrate his first novel. Aimee Bender, crafter of wonderfully odd fiction, concocts a wonderfully odd essay about her fixation on other people's sack lunches.

Be sure to check out this hilarious and enlightening look at food, deep dark secrets, food, romance, food, celebrations…oh and did I mention food. A tell all tale of food and the people who love it. (call number 641.013 D349).

 

Alison's BOOK Pick

Here's my new favorite book, "Library Lion" by Michelle Knudsen, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
An excerpt:

One day, a lion came to the library.  He walked right past the circulation desk and up into the stacks.  Mr. McBee ran down the hall to the head librarian's office.  "Miss Merriweather!" he called. 
"No running," said Miss Merriweather, without looking up.
"But there's a lion!  said Mr. McBee.  "In the library!"
"Is he breaking any rules?" asked Miss Merriweather.  She was very particular about rule breaking.
"Well, no" said Mr. McBee.  "Not really."
"Then leave him be."

To find out what happens next, visit the NMH Library's Chidren's Room!

NEWBook Recommendation

After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning

by Ian Wilmut, Roger Highfield

A brave, moral argument for cloning and its power to fight disease.

A timely investigation into the ethics, history, and potential of human cloning from Professor Ian Wilmut, who shocked scientists, ethicists, and the public in 1997 when his team unveiled Dolly—that very special sheep who was cloned from a mammary cell. With award-winning science journalist Roger Highfield, Wilmut explains how Dolly launched a medical revolution in which cloning is now used to make stem cells that promise effective treatments for many major illnesses. Dolly's birth also unleashed an avalanche of speculation about the eventuality of cloning babies, which Wilmut strongly opposes. However, he does believe that scientists should one day be allowed to combine the cloning of human embryos with genetic modification to free families from serious hereditary disease. In effect, he is proposing the creation of genetically altered humans.

This book can be found on the New Book Shelf in the Library (call number 176 W682)

New Book Recommendation

Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America 

by Giles Slade

If you've replaced a computer lately--or a cell phone, a camera, a television--chances are, the old one still worked. And chances are even greater that the latest model won't last as long as the one it replaced. Welcome to the world of planned obsolescence--a business model, a way of life, and a uniquely American invention that this eye-opening book explores from its beginnings to its perilous implications for the very near future.

Made to Break is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence.

America invented everything that is now disposable, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America's rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. His book shows us the ideas behind obsolescence at work in such American milestones as the inventions of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network, the development of electronic technologies--and with it the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that will overwhelm America's landfills and poison its water within the coming decade.

History reserves a privileged place for those societies that built things to last--forever, if possible. What place will it hold for a society addicted to consumption--a whole culture made to break? This book gives us a detailed and harrowing picture of how, by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives we may well be shortening the future of our way of life as well.

This wonderful look at the evolution of disposable technology can be found on the new book shelf in the library (call number 338.4 SL12)

 

Phil Calabria's BOOK Pick

Under The Looking Glass: Color Photographs by Olivia Parker

Olivia Parker brings a subtle and compelling vision of her work, and these photographic collages reflect her mastery of the medium. Composed of such evocative elements as ripened fruit, full blooms, antique dolls, feathers, starfish, beetles, beads and old photographs, these images suggest a world apart with their eerie, luminous quality. Parker has developed her surreal and private compositions in ways that are almost sculptural. The vibrant color of these prints is equally astonishing, capturing every nuance of tone and detail essential to her art.

Under the Looking Glass is the first book of Olivia Parker’s color photographs. In his introduction, poet Mark Strand has written of the underlying tension in these images, and the allusions surrounding the objects. Each component of a photograph takes on an exaggerated importance. Commonplace props become icons, and the finished still lifes invite the viewer to imagine a greater significance than their simple contents would suggest. Olivia Parker has created a rare kingdom in these photographs, seen with intensity, wit and sensuality.  – from the publisher

(this wonderful art book can be found in the library's general collection at call number 779.092 P227)

NEW Book Recommendation

For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States
by Diane L. Beers

Animal rights. Those two words conjure diverse but powerful images and reactions. Some nod in agreement, while others roll their eyes in contempt. Most people fall somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, between endorsement and rejection, as they struggle with the profound moral, philosophical, and legal questions provoked by the debate. Today, thousands of organizations lobby, agitate, and educate the public on issues concerning the rights and treatment of nonhumans. For the Prevention of Cruelty is the first history of organized advocacy on behalf of animals in the United States to appear in nearly a half century. Diane Beers demonstrates how the cause has shaped and reshaped itself as it has evolved within the broader social context of the shift from an industrial to a postindustrial society. Until now, the legacy of the movement in the United States has not been examined. Few Americans today perceive either the companionship or the consumption of animals in the same manner as did earlier generations. Moreover, powerful and lingering bonds connect the seemingly disparate American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of the nineteenth century and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals of today. For the Prevention of Cruelty tells an intriguing and important story that reveals society's often changing relationship with animals through the lens of those who struggled to shepherd the public toward a greater compassion.

This moving and accurate account of the beginning of a movement can be found in the new books section of the library (call number 179.3 B392) 

New Book Recommendation

Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950 by Peter E. Dans, Rebecca Lepkoff, Suzanne Wasserman A young Rebecca Lepkoff, camera in hand, navigated the streets of the Lower East Side of New York in the 1930s and 1940s, before the Alfred E. Smith housing project largely demolished and forever changed its character. She captured the lives and times of a vibrant, close-knit, and functional multiethnic community. Through her lens, she documented street scenes—a woman stopping in front of a tenement to share some news, a fruit seller peddling her wares, a woman hanging laundry on a clothesline. Stoops, rooftops, fire escapes, and sidewalks in front of candy stores and delis were the preferred social and recreational locales. In the absence of playgrounds, children improvised outdoor play areas and congregated Saturday afternoons in front of the Loew's Canal. Life on the Lower East Side, the first monograph of Lepkoff's works, highlights the lost neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges from the Bowery to the East River. With over 170 beautifully reproduced duotone photographs and essays by Peter Dans and Suzanne Wasserman, the book reveals the dynamic community of Italians, Irish, Jews, Greeks, Spaniards, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, and African Americans. Lepkoff's images uncover a forgotten time and place and reveal how the Lower East Side has both stayed the same and changed forever. This wonderful collection of photographs is available on the new book shelf in the library. (call number 77.9974 L557)

Sarah Anne's NEW MAG Review

CRAFT:

"Stitch it. Hack it. Wear it. Celebrate the DIY spirit with CRAFT, the first project-based magazine dedicated to the growing community of imaginative people revolutionizing the world of arts and crafts," hails a self-promotional ad in this neat new magazine. Physically built more like a literary journal, this thick little zine contains a myriad of major projects, ads for vintage fabrics, cool websites, artist bios, and articles about cool creations and the punk craft movement.

Most of the narration is whimsical and laid back; the Table of Contents is organized into the categories "Clone it," "Embellish It," "Wear it," "Flash it," "Needle it," and "Book it." Even if you're not likely to get right down to it and make that dress out of socks, it's a good read. In fact, the first 50 or so pages (out of 160) are made up of articles about interesting projects and artists.

A good deal of the projects focus on taking existing objects and reworking them into something else. "'Reduce, reuse, and reycycle' have replaced 'reading, 'riting, and 'ritmetic' as the three Rs foremost in people's minds. It was in this spirit that I created the following pattern...The lining is made from old jeans...The handle is a clothesline...an environmentally friendly and economical choice...But more exciting than its use of recycled materials is the bag's combination of recycled design from the 1940s and 1970s." - Beth Doherty, p. 63 Other projects in this issue include a cabinet made from circuit boards, how to make a Hawaiian quilt, how to stencil a shirt using freezer paper, how to make shoes out of jeans, and, as seen on the cover, how to make vegetable replicas out of wool. Most projects are time consuming and a few require tools like copy machines or significant know-how of carpentry or other skills. The directions include lots of photos but are written somewhat technically.

If you consider yourself already a part of the craftster or general alterna culture, musical, cultural, and literary references abound in CRAFT for you to enjoy. Them not consistently being explained is a good example of how this publication assumes that you have experience crafting and in the craftster world.

I recommend this to anyone, new or veteran of crafting. Even if you don't plan on doing any of the projects, it holds the reader's attention consistently.   - Sarah-Anne, '08

Kellen's NEW BOOK Pick

This is your brain on music : the science of a human obsession by David J. Levin (Click on title to check availability.)

Think of a song that resonates deep down in your being. Now imagine sitting down with someone who was there when the song was recorded and can tell you how that series of sounds was committed to tape, and who can also explain why that particular combination of rhythms and pitches has lodged in your memory, making your pulse race and your heart swell every time you hear it. Remarkably, Levitin does all this and more, interrogating the basic nature of hearing and of music making, without losing an affectionate appreciation for the songs he's reducing to neural impulses. Levitin is the ideal guide to this material, having had a successful career as a rock musician and studio producer before turning to cognitive neuroscience, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a top researcher on how our brains interpret music. His snappy prose and relaxed style quickly win one over and leave readers thinking about the contents of their iPods in an entirely new way. - from Publisher's Weekly

NEW BOOK Pick

AFTERMATH: WORLD TRADE CENTER ARCHIVE by Joel Meyerowitz (Click title to check availability.)

After September 11th, 2001, the Ground Zero site in New York City was classified as a crime scene and only those directly involved in the recovery efforts were allowed inside. The press was also prohibited from the site, but with the help of the Museum of the City of New York and sympathetic city officials, award-winning photographer Joel Meyerowitz managed to obtain unlimited access. By ingenuity and sheer determination, he was the only photographer granted unimpeded right of entry into Ground Zero.

For 9 months, during the day and night, Meyerowitz photographed "the pile," as the World Trade Center came to be known, and the over 800 people a day that were working in it. Influenced by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange's work for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, he knew that if he didn't make a photographic record of the unprecedented recovery efforts, "there would be no history."

Come look for this incredible book at the library (call number 973.93 M576a).