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The current mania for multitasking has contributed to a growing demand for audiobooks at public libraries. In particular, the CD format is popular with commuters, joggers and everyone else who abhors the wastefulness of doing just one thing at a time. Each month I spend about 15 hours on the road, enough time to listen to at least one book on CD. A few weeks ago I happened to get two that I'd been eagerly awaiting: Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. As I listened to one and then the other, comparisons were inevitable. Each book is a collection of humorous autobiographical essays written by a gay man in his 40s. Both authors began their writing careers in New York City, but both have Southern connections: Sedaris grew up in North Carolina, while Burroughs's mother was from the South. Both men write with caustic but affectionate humor about friends and family members. Other shared topics in these collections include apartment cleaners (Sedaris worked as one; Burroughs hired a particularly manipulative one), the drowning of a mouse (in two very different circumstances) and moments in childhood when each realized that he would never be like other boys. While superficially similar, Sedaris and Burroughs differ in some crucial ways. Sedaris grew up in a large, fairly traditional family. He was in his 20s before his father told him to move out; he didn't learn until later that it was because he was gay. When Burroughs was 12, his mother entrusted him to the care of her eccentric psychiatrist. In the disorder and anarchy of the doctor's house, children did as they pleased, rarely attending school. No one interfered when one of the doctor's former patients, a middle-aged man, began sexually abusing Augusten. Burroughs described his adolescence in the darkly comic Running with Scissors (2002), which was followed by his memoir of alcoholism, Dry (2003). His writing reflects a level of angst commensurate with his abnormal upbringing. While Sedaris can be self-deprecating, his writing rarely veers into downright insecurity. Nor is he quite as preoccupied with his own idiosyncrasies, preferring to focus on those of the people around him. When he turned 18, Burroughs legally changed his name, thus obscuring the identities of both his original and adopted families. Sedaris, on the other hand, regularly subjects his family members to public humiliation; they now keep their guard up when he visits, lest their foibles make it into his next book. Burroughs worked in advertising before deciding to write his first book, the novel Sellevision (2000). The title of his latest book comes from his belief that he can achieve anything simply by thinking hard enough about it, whether it be the sale of a manuscript or the death of a former boss. (He also has a fascinating theory about Baby Jesus and a cow.) Sedaris's writing first achieved attention while he still worked as an apartment cleaner. Unlike Burroughs, he has only written essays and stories; previous collections include Barrel Fever and Me Talk Pretty One day. A key component of the audiobook experience is the choice of narrator. While a skilled performer can bring any author's work to life, sometimes there is no substitute for the voice of the author himself, particularly when the material is autobiographical. Both Sedaris and Burroughs are seasoned performers of their own work. Sedaris, who has been reading his essays and stories publicly for many years, has mastered the nuances of spoken humor. Burroughs's interpretation of his own work, while usually entertaining, sometimes comes across as forced. However, both writers excel at imitating the quirky characters in their lives. As a bonus on the last CD of Magical Thinking, Burroughs reads the first draft of a forthcoming essay. The disc also includes a lengthy conversation in which his agent asks him questions and has him respond to word-association cues. These two writers will not appeal to everyone. If you are offended by coarse language or references to homosexual behavior, these are not the books for you. But anyone else who enjoys darkly humorous autobiography would do well to give both these writers a listen.
Being a pedestrian kind of a guy, I don’t know much about film or cinema theory. I’ll leave that kind of “how many producers can dance on the head of a pin” to the experts. I do like movies and watch them to be entertained. If I’m informed or enlightened along the way in a painless manner, that’s fine. Here I’m going to be talking about a movie about books and a book about movies. “Stone Reader” Produced and directed by Mark Moskowitz, 2002. Mark Moskowitz made his living doing film documentaries for corporations and politicians. Besides that, all his life he has been a reading fool, as I am. He’s the kind of man who, if he likes a book, buys multiple inexpensive used copies to give away to his friends. In 1972 when Mr. Moskowitz was 18 he bought a book called “The Stones of Summer” by Dow Mossman, based on a glowing review by the New York Times. It just didn’t catch his interest and he tossed the book aside. Over the next 30 years it was packed and re-packed through move after move. On the shelves and off the shelves from one end of the United States to the other. Then something funny happened. Mark Moskowitz took the book on a trip and became enamored with the story and lost in the prose. Mr. Moskowitz was hungry for more work by this author. He went to the Internet to see what else the man had written and found… nothing. Very little biographical information and no stream of articles or books. Dow Mossman had apparently vanished off the face of the earth. So this is a kind of mystery. What happened to Dow Mossman? Mr. Moskowitz tracks down Mossman’s agent, editor, publisher, mentor and fellow students at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Along the way he looks at how voracious readers are encouraged by schools, libraries and parents. He also looks at other “one shot authors”. Mr. Moskowitz does find Dow Mossman. You will find out what internal and external forces crushed such a promising beginning. In the end, there is a glimmer of a resurrection of a writing career. I recommended this movie to a co-worker and she thanked me and said it made her cry. She cried because she was happy to find that in America there are occasionally second acts. “Best in Show; The Films of Christopher Guest and Company” by John Kenneth Muir. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2004. This author has written a long list of books on the movies. In this one he looks at the work of Christopher Guest, particularly his films “This is Spinal Tap” (1984), “Waiting for Guffman” (1997), “Best in Show” (2000) and “A Mighty Wind” (2003). The library system has all these films on DVD, VHS or both. Guest’s films are sometimes referred to as “mockumentaries” though that’s a term he doesn’t particularly care for. Guest more agrees with the critics and actors who see his films as “affectionate,” “reality plus one step further,” “very human” or “comedy done in a documentary style.” Actor Bob Balaban observed that the characters are “…somewhat misguided. They are trying to do something that they don’t really know how to do, or they’re doing it in a way that won’t quite get them what they want. But there’s something very endearing about it.” Either through lack of talent or luck, the characters usually fail, but by gosh, they give it their best shot. Guest’s method of working is fascinating. He sits down with a writer having in mind a setting. Rock band, small town community theatre, dog shows or folk singer’s reunion. There’s a very loose story line and a far more detailed back story for all the major characters. Pages and pages of back story. Once he decides on an actor for a particular part he and the actor fill in more back story. A scene is decided upon, the actors assemble and then they improvise. No script. This results in perhaps a hundred hours of film that is winnowed down to 90 minutes. Hence the feeling of immediacy and the amateur edge that are the trademarks of Guest’s films. Mr. Muir's book is slightly disappointing in that very few quotes are attributable directly to Guest. He's a private kind of a guy, but it was also clear that he encouraged his friends to talk about him and his films without restraint. An enthusiastic and affectionate treatment of the films of Christopher Guest. You may be unaware of the Timberland library system’s rich movie collection. The number of classic and current DVDs and videos is truly staggering. I recently ran across a copy of a Lillian Gish in a 1927 silent I had never heard of before. “The Wind.” Cool tornado. Perhaps you’ve dropped by your branch and not seen too much on the shelves. That’s because those in the know (and you want to be in the “know,” don’t you?) place holds on the titles they would like to see. Look in the Timberland catalog under the subject headings “Feature Films” or “DVD Collection.” There they all are. You can either place holds from your home Internet computer by accessing the catalog at www.trlib.org or stop by your local branch and a staff member will be more than happy to show you how to place a hold.
“Feeling the Heat; Dispatches from the Frontlines of Climate Change” edited by Jim Motavalli. Routledge, 2004. I run across these little news items on the Internet: 30,000 nesting pelicans disappear from North Dakota. Greenland’s ice is melting ten times faster than earlier research had indicated. The entire avian ecosystem of Scotland’s Northern Isles has collapsed. I pause and a feeling of unfocused anxiety steals over me. This book gives focus to free-floating disquiet. Feeling the Heat is a collection of ten written essays and one photo essay by different contributors, mainly environmental journalists and researchers who have been published in “E/The Environmental Magazine,” which has won awards for style and content. Each author explores some aspect of climate change in a different part of the world. In the Antarctic, the ice cap is breaking up and floating out to sea. The coral reefs are dying in Florida, Australia and Fiji. Holland and Venice make serious preparation for rising ocean levels while New York City does not, as the United States seems to be the only country in the world still in denial. Along the California coast, parts of the food chain are collapsing as other animals and plants move higher or further north. There is a chapter about the shrinking glaciers right here in our own Pacific Northwest. It’s the glaciers and snow pack that keep us in drinking water during the long summer. Our population is increasing, the glaciers are shrinking and even what snow pack there is has less water content than in previous years. Our lilacs now bloom more than a week earlier than they did back in the 1960’s. At first glance, that doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing, as long as we have the water to keep them alive. This is the thing about climate change. Lilacs bloom earlier, isolated bird populations collapse here and there and a variety of warmth loving butterfly moves into Yakima and Walla Walla from the south. Insignificant seeming things. But how long will it be before the Rattle Snakes of eastern Washington decide to pay us a visit? When the wet side of the mountains is no longer so wet and cold? More books on global climate change “The
Whale and the Supercomputer: On the northern front of climate change” by
Charles Wohlfort, 2004. “Frozen
Earth: The once and future story of ice ages” by J.D. Macdougall, 2004. “The
Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming” by
Davis G. Victor. 2001.
I am fascinated by disasters, real or imagined. Be it earthquake, flood, towering inferno, asteroid hit or impending ice age I’m lining up to read the book or see the movie. Why are we so interested? I think part of it is the more information we have, the more likely we are to survive. And maybe be a touch heroic along the way. Sometimes, great disasters quickly fade from human memory. Why? At the beginning of the 20th century, the ship Gen. Slocum burned to the waterline in New York’s East River killing almost as many people as the Titanic. In the 1940’s in Hartford, Connecticut, there was a circus fire with many lives lost. Timberland Library has books on both of these events. If disasters can be considered a genre, here are two more entries. “The
Sinking of the Eastland, America’s Forgotten Tragedy” by Jay Bonansinga.
(Citadel Press, 2004) and Jay Bonansinga lives in Chicago and is the award-winning author of several novels. “The Sinking of the Eastland, America’s Forgotten Tragedy” is his first venture into non-fiction. He wrote this book with the cooperation and support of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society. On a July day in 1915, over 2,000 employees of Western Electric in Chicago prepared to board boats to take them to an annual company picnic. Just as boarding was completed one of the ships, The Eastland, began to list and in minutes had rolled on it’s side and capsized. 844 people were drowned on a ship that never left the dock. Thousands of horrified onlookers observed the rescue and recovery efforts for those trapped below decks. Mr. Bonansinga provides a fast paced minute-by-minute account drawn from the reminisces of survivors, family members of victims and the rescuers. He also examines why the tragedy was forgotten so soon unlike the Titanic. He speculates that the reasons “…have to do with our national preference for celebrity over substance, our willingness to replace our awareness of one day’s tragedy with the next day’s concerns…” The author also explores the theory that the Titanic contributed to the Eastland’s sinking. The abundance of lifeboats mandated since the Titanic disaster made the Eastland top-heavy. John Nance is a Northwest author who has written several novels with an aeronautical theme. He is also the aviation analyst “talking head” for ABC News. And he is the author of a little known nonfiction work called “On Shaky Ground” that explores the possibility of a great quake in the Pacific Northwest. “Saving Cascadia” is a work of fiction. In 1700 Cascadia Subduction Zone slipped. This triggered an earthquake that toped .8 on the Richter Scale and probably lasted for around 5 minutes. Huge chunks of the Washington coast rose or fell. The resulting tsunami swept away villages in Japan. By studying core samples, scientists have determined that these “great quakes” occur every 300 to 500 years. It has been 305 years since the last one. John Nance has written a fictionalized account of what such a quake would be like if it happened today. There’s a large cast of interesting characters racing to save themselves and others. The story leaps from cliffhanger to cliffhanger as heroes and heroines struggle to head off total disaster. The aviation factor in this novel revolves around medical transport helicopters. The villain is a rich resort owner who refuses to evacuate his staff and guests in the face of impending danger. There was a recent television mini-series that explored the possibility of a great west coast quake. The critics laughed and dismissed the whole thing, as the science was a little faulty. John Nance points out in his Author’s Note that in the interest of fictional tension, the science in his book is also a bit faulty. But Mr. Nance also points out that there really is a Cascadia Subduction Zone that triggers a “great quake” every 300 to 500 years. Having read a great deal of disaster literature, I have come to realize that survivability is pretty much a crapshoot. But sometimes just a bit of knowledge and a little preparation can make the difference between an adventure and a disaster. --L. Hamburg * If you liked The Da Vinci Code, or—What to read while waiting for your copy. Thriller/Mystery Judging from the length of the hold lists at the library, many of us have discovered other books by Dan Brown besides his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. They are well written, have good, can’t-put-it-down plots, somewhat mysterious and interesting subject matter, characters we find real yet fascinating, and they are very well researched. Many events and organizations that you think may have been fabricated for the sake of the book turn out to be real. Brown’s Angels and Demons is also about Robert Langdon, the main character in The Da Vinci Code. Brown makes references in The Da Vinci Code to events in Angels and Demons, so it is something of a sequel. Although the plot is fraught with mysterious groups and individual agendas, somehow Brown brings it together to form a satisfying whole. One of Brown’s strengths is to bring historical mysteries into a modern setting. The Da Vinci Code uses the Priory of Sion; Angels and Demons uses the Illuminati. In Deception Point, it’s current politics and NASA with an object buried deep in the Arctic ice that will prove that extraterrestrial life exists. Brown’s first novel, Digital Fortress, involves computers, the Internet and encryption technology. Those who like the fast paced aspect of The Da Vinci Code will also enjoy his other titles. If your imagination was captured by the mystery of the secret society and speculation about the historical Jesus, Dan Brown has provided a good list of factual explorations on the topic: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; The Woman With the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail by Margaret Starbird; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine by Margaret Starbird, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. (one of Brown’s characters, Leigh Teabing, is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent.) I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail over 15 years ago and still remember it as an exhaustively researched, fascinating exploration of the possible histories of Jesus and clandestine societies such as the Templars, the Masons and others. It should be noted that those who hold strongly with literal biblical interpretation would find much to argue with. Being a history buff, I enjoyed the historical aspects of The Da Vinci Code. It almost seems like an alternate history, or at least a history that didn’t get much play in any book on Western Civilization that I ever read. Other intellectual thrillers with historical underpinnings are The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, and A Case of Curiosities and The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil. Judith Merkle Riley has some interesting historical novels that often have an arcane touch: In Pursuit of the Green Lion, The Oracle Glass, The Serpent Garden, The Master of All Desires, and A Vision of Light. Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book and Lincoln’s Dreams, and Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun, both use historical settings to tell cryptic tales. If you want to go a little farther into the realm of fantasy fiction, try The Adept series by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris; The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper; or, an oldie but a goodie, C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength). Terry Brooks has a good vs. evil series going with three titles, Running With the Demon, A Knight of the Word and Angel Fire East. In the read-alikes category, Lewis Perdue claims that The Da Vinci Code was stolen from his novel The Da Vinci Legacy but the two are very different, although similar in some ways. Although I found Perdue to be a little formulaic, both his The Da Vinci Legacy and Daughter of God have interesting plots, as does Codex by Lev Grossman. This just came out in 2004 and may have been a bid to capture some of the Dan Brown audience, but it succeeds on its own merits as well. You will also want to check out books by the authors John Case and Daniel Silva. Both are comparable in subject as well as pace. To find other read-alikes of your favorite novels, delve into the library’s online reference resources or ask at your library for suggestions. All of the titles mentioned in this article can be found at the Timberland Regional Library, many of them in audio as well as print editions. --Heather King * Selected adults’ and children’s books about knitting. 746, 746.432, E Book list:
No longer the sole province of moms and grandmas, knitting is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Twenty-somethings, teens and kids are discovering the pleasurable sound of clicking needles and the satisfaction of completing a project. But if mom, grandma or the neighbors can’t knit, the wannabe knitter can turn to a wide range of books for instruction and inspiration. Stitch n’ Bitch by Debbie Stoller is a great resource for older teens and twenty-somethings. (The title is borrowed from the knitting club Stoller started with friends.) It has solid, step-by-step instructions for casting-on, knitting, purling, increasing and decreasing – the building blocks of any knitted item. But you get more than basics -- she includes directions for more than 20 knitting projects from the easy Go-Go Garter Stitch Scarf to the more difficult Wonder Woman bikini. Stoller also tells how she learned to knit, gives a brief history of knitting and dispenses advice. A particularly good feature is the chapter on the world of knitting, including Internet sites, listservs and blogs. Teens will want to check out Hip to Knit by Judith L. Swartz. It doesn’t teach you to knit, but does have 18 projects. Swartz includes tips on making a project fit – essential since getting knitted items to fit can be tricky. She also discusses some beyond-the-basics techniques like combining yarns and felting (knitting large and shrinking to size). Some of the projects included are: the Bare Necessities Purse, Mismatched Striped Socks and Boyfriend Sweater. Younger kids aren’t left out – two particularly good instruction books are aimed squarely at them. Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick and Kids Can Knit by Carolyn Clewer teach knitting basics with clear writing, drawings of the various techniques and great photographs. Both discuss basic tools and techniques and offer interesting projects to choose from. Falick relates a brief history of knitting and discusses the different kinds of plants and fibers that can become yarn. Carolyn Clewer shows kids how to make their own yarn from old clothing or even plastic bags. “Kids Knitting” gives direction for making a pocket scarf, bath puppets, and a wizard’s cap. If you’ve ever wanted to knit a fried egg, “Kids Can Knit” tells you how – or you can knit up a plaid poncho instead. Both books offer a sweater pattern for the final project. Last, I can’t pass up an opportunity to recommend two terrific picture books that feature knitting. Terri Sloat’s Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep gets us to consider a sheep’s point of view. Once Farmer Brown removes the wool from his sheep, they get cold. They follow him around as he delivers the wool and as it is washed and carded, spun and dyed. All the while, the sheep cry, “Baaa! We want it back!” Eventually, Farmer Brown notices their plight and returns the wool to them – in a slightly different form. This is a fun and funny story with wonderful illustrations. The Red Wolf by Margaret Shannon is a fairy tale that celebrates the power of knitting. Roselupin finds herself locked in a tower by her father, the king. A basket of yarn is provided for her entertainment. She soon knits up a wolf suit (which happens to be magical) and escapes from the tower. While she enjoys an unlimited diet and total freedom, her adventurous paradise eventually unravels. She reverts to human form and is returned, only to be locked up in an even bigger tower. Again, Roselupin knits a magical garment – this time for the king. He gets his comeuppance and Roselupin wins her freedom for good. Anyone can join in the fun of learning to knit – or at the very least, reading a good book about the old craft that is new again. --Linda Conroy * Selected Books for Discussion Groups: “Book Discussion Groups & Their Books.” Fiction & Nonfiction Book groups and clubs abound in America today. They are sponsored by libraries, bookstores, organizations, and television talk show hosts as well as enjoyed among friends and colleagues. The book group as a social and literary entity has been around since before the 18th century, which saw the rise in popularity of European literary salons. In the United States, bestselling books were an outcome of the Book of the Month Club and the Literary Guild, both founded in the late 1920s. These subscription book groups provided affordable reading to millions of Americans alongside the uniquely American free public library system. In 1996, Oprah Winfrey re-energized book groups as a national pastime with “The Oprah Book Club”. If you, dear reader, wish to be in a book group, there is no dearth of opportunity! Currently, the Timberland Regional Library system sponsors 25monthly “PageTurners” book discussion groups in 22 libraries in Thurston, Lewis, Pacific, Mason, and Grays Harbor Counties. The meetings are always open to new participants. (See www.trlib.org/PageTurners.asp) Local bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble and Fireside in Olympia, sponsor numerous book discussion groups. Most groups meet monthly. Private book clubs often combine book discussion with time devoted to social chat and food—especially dessert! Many publishers, such as Random House and Penguin/Putnam have enhanced reading experiences by including reading guides that contain discussion questions, background notes, and author biographies. Book group guides abound on the Internet. Among the most popular are the Timberland library-sponsored subscription reference resource “NoveList” at www.trlib.org (your Timberland library card gets you in) and websites such as www.readinggroupguides.com and www.bookbrowser.com There are numerous books devoted to helping book groups. In one (The Reading Group Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Own Book Club), author Rachel W. Jacobsohn states: “A good book is a gift to be appreciated by the mind, the body, and the soul”. She even invites her readers to write to her about their groups’ “policies, reading choices, stumbling blocks and…successes.” What makes a good discussion book? Ellen Moore and Kira Stevens, authors of Good Books Lately: the One-Stop Resource for Book Groups and Other Greedy Readers, list the eight most popular book discussion group genres as: the classic literary novel, contemporary literary novels, short story collections, popular paperbacks, the memoir/autobiography, the creative essay/creative nonfiction, and strict nonfiction-historical story. Nancy Pearl (author of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason and recently-retired Executor Director of the Washington State Center for the Book) says that good discussion books usually have all four of what she calls “the four appeals”: a great story, a remarkable setting, unforgettable characters, and a great writing style. Here is a short list of books that have these appeals and are popular with book groups. There are so many more! Summaries can be found in Timberland’s online library catalog. (www.trlib.org) Fiction
Nonfiction
-- Jean D. Barnett * Selected Cookbooks: Real Food Fast. 641 "Hey, Mom, when’s dinner?" Is this a nightly refrain at your house? With kids, a spouse and a full-time job, it can be difficult to get a healthy, filling dinner on the table quickly before everyone disperses for homework, sports, yard work, and a complicated family social calendar. Not to mention, after another hectic workday, even moms need time to relax. Thanks to a recent spate of "quick" cookbooks, help is on the way. Many of the following authors claim you will have dinner on the table in under an hour and, for the most part, they succeed. Some of these cookbooks rely heavily on packaged or processed foods while others try to stay as close to fresh as possible. What, then, constitutes "quick" cooking? According to the introduction in The Quick Recipe (Boston Common Press, 2003), a new cookbook by the editors of "Cook’s Illustrated Magazine," the definition of a quick recipe is that it’s worth the effort, ready to serve in less than 60 minutes and does not have a laundry list of ingredients. One of their tricks is to pair high quality convenience products, such as canned beans and diced tomatoes, with fresh ingredients. Three successful recipes in this book are Crispy Noodle Cake with Spicy Stir-Fried Chicken and Bok Choy, Toasted Orzo Pilaf with Peas and Parmesan, and Mashed Sweet Potatoes. The ingredients are indeed fresh, the techniques are fairly quick, and the quality of the food is excellent, but these recipes often take up to an hour or more to get on the table, especially if a lot of chopping is necessary. While an hour’s worth of cooking may be fine, some nights are more hurried than others and something a bit faster is necessary. That’s the time to pull out Desperation Dinners (Workman, 1997) and Desperation Entertaining (Workman, 2002). Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross have created these books based on their syndicated column. Mills and Ross "teach you how to use what you have in the kitchen to put a healthy, home-cooked meal on the table in 20 minutes flat" with a limited reliance on processed food. Some of the best recipes include Anti-Stress Antipasto, French Peasant Supper, Mindless Mu-Shu and Pasta with Cabernet Sauce and Sausage, but there are many more excellent choices that really are ready in the time it takes to boil pasta. Another new cookbook to use on these ultra-quick occasions is Betty Crocker’s Quick & Easy Cookbook (Betty Crocker, 2002). While many of the recipes do rely on packaged foods, such as canned soup, there are enough recipes free of ultra-processed food to make this cookbook worthwhile. In addition, nutrition information is included for those with special dietary needs. Some of the better recipes are New England Baked Bean Stew, Antipasto French Bread Pizzas and Angel Hair Pasta with Fresh Basil, Avocado and Tomatoes. Rachael Ray is a new guru of fast and healthy cooking. Her cookbooks 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, 1999) and Comfort Foods (Lake Isle Press, 2001) are based on her Food Network TV show, "30 Minute Meals." While some of her recipes are available at www.foodtv.com, having the books on a nearby shelf is very convenient for a quick perusal of such family favorites as Meatloaf Patties & Smashed Potatoes with Scallions and Manny's Manly Meat Sauce & Rigatoni. There are, of course, many books that include quick recipes, but don’t have hurry-up cooking as their primary theme. French Food at Home (William Morrow, 2003) is a new cookbook by Laura Calder that has an entire chapter called "Dinner Fairly Fast." These recipes, such as Leek Tart, Bacon Cod and Pickle Chops, rely on a few quality ingredients cooked quickly to produce classical results. The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book (Hearst Books, 2001) edited by Susan Westmoreland contains an abundance of recipes, many of them fast. Included in this modern all-purpose cookbook are Ham and Grits with Red-Eye Gravy, New Chicken Cordon Bleu and Steak with Red Wine Sauce. Some other unexpected sources of quick cooking rely on breakfast foods. Because eggs, waffles and the like are inherently fast, breakfast-for-dinner can be on the table in record time. Two of the best are Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Café (Hyperion, 2002) and Marie Simmons’ The Good Egg (Houghton Mifflin, 2000). A sampling of recipes includes Oatmeal Waffles, Spring Frittata and Pumpkin Muffins from Katzen, and Cheddar Scrambled Eggs in Tortillas with Tomato-Avocado Salsa, Bacon, Avocado & Brie Omelette and Eggs Cooked in Savory Toast with Parmesan, Walnuts & Prosciutto from Simmons. On those hurried weeknights when the full meal deal is not possible and the drive-through leaves you cold, these quick cookbooks will help you serve up real food fast. Your family will thank you and you’ll still have time to enjoy the rest of your evening. --Cindi Carey * Selected Travel: Read Your Way Through China. Nonfiction (915) and FictionDo you dream of traveling to exotic destinations? Consider traveling through China in comfort and style: Just pack up some books, hike over to your favorite armchair, and settle in. This article reviews five books on China written from various perspectives and in various eras. The first two are from diaries written three-quarters of a century apart. The other three offer different viewpoints of life on the Yangtze River. Preview of the titles: Vanished Kingdoms by Mabel H. Cabot (2003) begins in 1921. Frederick Wulsin, under the sponsorship of the National Geographic Society, began a five-month exploration and biological specimen gathering venture in the province of Shansi, a journey of 525 miles from Peking. He and his wife, Janet, marched the entire length of the province and camped in 29 different places. A subsequent grant from the Society funded an additional two-year trip into the Kwiechow region of southwest China into the Gobi desert. The extraordinary part is that the book is written from Janet Wulsin’s diaries. As Cabot states, “Women explore differently from men; they often let their instincts guide them following the trail wherever it leads. Janet Wulsin was no exception.” Janet took many of the photographs in an era when travel to Tibet was true exploration. They were allowed to photograph the interiors of many Tibetan lamaseries, including Kumbum, Labrang, and Choni, some no longer in existence. The Wulsin Collection was donated to the Harvard Peabody Museum in the 1950s. It contained more than 1,900 photographs, negatives, and lanternslides, many of which were used in this book. Their photographs are unique because they offer a rare glimpse of a part of China’s visual past that few westerners have experienced. Edited by Janet’s daughter, Mabel. H. Cabot, Vanished Kingdoms tells of a journey made on foot, by camel, mule train, and on rafts outfitted with inflated yak skins, carrying the 1,400 specimens in crates waterproofed with pigs blood. Janet worked along with Frederick in preserving specimens and developing and cataloging photographs on the strenuous trip. Janet’s diaries and letters are as illustrative as the photos themselves. She writes of the festival of Cham-ngyon-wa at a Buddhist lamasery at Choni. Towering panels made of chilled yak butter featuring astrological and mythological deities are illuminated at night by yak butter candles. The heat of the candles rotated a little prayer wheel of the temple, inscribed with the traditional prayer, “oh, lotus flower, Amen.” This book is meant to be savored in small pieces like a fine chocolate, so that you may enjoy all the photographs and delightful narrative from a more slowly paced life than that of the 21st century. Another travel diarist, Paul Theroux, also covered the far corners of China from Tibet to Shanghai, but using a more modern mode of transportation, the railroad. Theroux travels all the major rail lines of China in the late 1980s, after Mao’s Cultural Revolution in Riding the Iron Rooster (published in 1988). He weaves historical background and unusual facts into his tale, delivering a series of unique snapshots of almost every part of the country. From Qindao, the site of a German governor’s residence, modeled after the Kaiser’s palace, to the fact that that the Chinese find it useful to manufacture steam engines, spittoons and quill pens for modern day use, this book is an enticing journey describing many a traveler’s frustration and delight. A good travel journal not only paints a picture of the country, but can also give autobiographical insights into the author’s life. Because, as Theroux states, “Travel is frequently a matter of seizing the moment. It is personal. Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine. Our accounts of the journeys would be different.” Theroux’s quote exemplifies his travel style, a journey of personal interactions with the Chinese, making it an epic of China itself, not just another travelogue. Indeed, China’s name, The Middle Kingdom, referring to the ancient theory of a flat earth surrounded by inhospitable and unearthly borders, still describes the vastness of Theroux’s present day journey. In the center of the Middle Kingdom is the Yangtze River. The following three titles show the interweaving of the past and present in life on the river. In The River at the Center of the World (1996), author Simon Winchester, the Asia-Pacific editor of Conde Nast Traveler, a geologist by training, and a 10 year resident of Hong Kong, travels up the 3,900 miles of the Yangtze with his Chinese guide, Lily. Winchester writes about everything along the riverbank, narrating historical incidents and tales embedded in the river. He relates the geologist’s view of the formation of the Great Bend (of the river) at Shigu, “…simply the work of tectonics…” But there is also the Chinese legend: the Great Bend is the work of an emperor, Yu the Great, who placed Cloud Mountain at the point of the bend to keep the river from flowing out of China. Traveling to the headwaters of the Yangtze in Tibet, Winchester experiences weather extremes, car breakdowns, the bureaucracy of the Chinese police, and the beauty of the alpine-like peaks of the Tanggula Range; all in the center of the Middle Kingdom. Peter Hessler’s book, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001), depicts life in one place on the Yangtze River, Fuling, an industrial city in Sichuan province. It is a place that has not been visited by waiguoron, or foreigners, for the last 50 years. Hessler, a Peace Corps volunteer, writes a thoughtful and humorous memoir of his experience teaching American and English literature to rural students of the Fuling Teachers College. He writes, “Few passengers embark at Fuling…and so Fuling appears like a break in a dream—the quiet river, the cabins full of travelers drifting off to sleep, the lights of the city rising from the blackness of the Yangtze.” Yet Fuling is a culturally changed town in the aftermath of the death of Deng Xiaopeng, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and plans to construct the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze. Many of the residents of Fuling face resettlement from the construction of the dam, originally proposed by Sun Yat-Sen in 1919. Known to the local townspeople as Ho Wei, Hessler gradually overcomes the local resistance to waiguron, eating in local noodle shops and conversing with those curious about his daily journal writing. While learning about a new culture, he teaches his students Beowulf and Shakespeare. The continual conflict between communist ideology and the liberal influence of Peace Corps volunteers was most aptly characterized in the English department’s banning of the staging of a Chinese version of Don Quixote. Hessler says, “…without our influence there certainly would not have been a Communist Party member with the English name Mo Money,” the star of the production. A young American engineer envisions the Three Gorges Dam in John Hersey’s fiction work, A Single Pebble (1956). The dam would change a way of life endured for centuries by villagers along the Yangtze. The engineer, also the narrator of the story, travels in a junk pulled by 40 trackers, men who manually tow barges and junks across the rapids and gorges of the Yangtze River. His task is to find the best spot for a hydroelectric project. Of the path the trackers follow through one gorge, he says, “Chinese rivermen had been satisfied for a millennium—for more than 5 times the age of my native country—to use this awful way of getting through the Wind-Box Gorge.” “Old Big,” the owner of the junk, his wife Su-ling, the cook, and the head tracker, Old Pebble, draw the young engineer into the rhythm of river culture, and he emerges in awe of the cliffs of the Three Gorges. He says, “My career, engineering, seemed only nonsense here. Nothing—absolutely nothing—could be done by man’s puny will for this harsh valley littered with gigantic rocks.” Although the engineer writes a favorable report for building the dam, “It was dismissed and I was tagged by sound men as impractical…The dam is still to be built. It will be, one day—of that I am sure.” Beautifully written, the book is still relevant to the eternal conflicts of man versus nature, and progress versus traditional culture. --Rosemary Conor * Selected World War I: In Flanders Fields. Nonfiction and Fiction; Various mediaIf you are in the mood for a different kind of armchair travel, I suggest creating your own kind of “time traveling” via a smorgasbord of materials, chosen intentionally to facilitate your exploration of that eternal question: “What must it have been like to have lived back then?” Delving into some background will allow you to embed yourself in the time period – and will allow you to kinesthetically feel closer to the characters – and to the real people – you will encounter in your reading. The first thing is to pick a time. For the purposes of this review, I have chosen the period of World War I – it is becoming so remote from our current generations as to seem almost incomprehensible. Next, you want to choose a range of material from different genres to try to evoke for yourself a good understanding of the period. Here are my choices (and why): Check out the Web: www.firstworldwar.com - this is an excellent site for all kinds of multimedia information on the Great War. Especially interesting are the audio and video clips. Then spend some time with Fields of Memory: A Testimony to the Great War, by Anne Roze (1999) – for photographs of the battlefields of France as they are now. For contrast, go through the encyclopedic World War I In Photographs (Carlton Books, 2002). These photos will give you real faces to remember as you read about the fictional characters in the novels. Next, take some time to either read or listen to the poetry of the lost poets of WW I – there were some great ones, and their verses, penned in the trenches, are a powerful testament to the loss of their talent. I recommend Great Poets of World War I, by Jon Stallworthy (2002). If you’re up for it, try a biography for the period. One that will give a slightly different perspective is Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, published first in 1970. The book has also been recorded on cassette. London Film Productions made the book into a film that is available at the library. Brittain was a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, who lost her fiancé, her brother, and her closest friend in the War. (Did you know that Great Britain lost 658,000 in those 4 years of war?) This memoir is a vivid evocation of the passionate feelings and convictions of ‘The Lost Generation.” Now you’re ready to “time travel” with these fiction works that I recommend as the “best of the best:”
This multilayered, multimedia kind of “time travel” is guaranteed to make your reading of great novels even more enjoyable – by providing a rich bed of context. But be careful! It may take you in directions you had never imagined! Just don’t forget to come back…--Pat Chupa What to Read Next? Library Offers Online Help for Curious Readers. TRL Online Book & Author Information
"I've read all of Tony Hillerman's books. Who else writes mysteries set in the Southwest and featuring Navajo Indians?"
"My book group is discussing Cry, the Beloved Country. Where can I find information about the author?"
"I read a wonderful book 20 years ago, but I can't remember the author or the title. Can you help me find it?"
Yes! At Timberland Regional Library we can help you find all this and more. Better still, you can help yourself to a wealth of information online anytime. Just go to www.trlib.org and click on "Reference Resources" to get started.
Timberland subscribes to three databases designed especially for readers. These are available on computers at all 27 libraries, but you can also use them at home, at work or wherever you have Internet access and a library card.
The most versatile of these databases is called NoveList. When you click on the Start button, you'll see a number of ways to search. For the Tony Hillerman question, you can choose the first link, "Find a Favorite Author."
A search for Tony Hillerman results in 18 titles. Clicking on the first one, The Blessing Way, you'll see a button at the top of the page that says "Find Similar Books." Clicking there, you'll get a list of subject headings.
If you select the subjects "Mystery stories, American"; "Navajo Indians"; and "New Mexico," the NoveList search engine returns a list of hundreds of titles. High on the list are books by Aimee and David Thurlo, featuring Ella Clah, a detective with the Navajo Police.
Another way to find similar authors on NoveList is to look at the "Author Read-alikes." This link from the main search page brings up dozens of articles, listed alphabetically by author. Each article describes the author's books and suggests similar writers.
NoveList is also a great resource for finding those elusive titles of books read long ago. Using the "Describe a Plot" search, you can enter a series of words describing what you remember about the book. Narrow your search, if desired, by limiting it to certain age levels, publication years or even the number of pages.
Recently a woman called the library looking for a book she remembered about a magician who was a serial killer. In NoveList I entered the plot words "magician serial killer."
The first book that came up was The Vanished Man by Jeff Deaver, and that was indeed the book she wanted to reread. I never would have found it in the library catalog, because the word "magician" doesn't appear anywhere in the record for that book.
Another database for finding books is called What Do I Read Next? Though similar to NoveList in the type of information offered, searching it is quite different and can even be somewhat tricky. The key is to search as broadly as possible, avoiding the temptation to search for an exact time period or type of character.
One advantage of What Do I Read Next? Over NoveList is the inclusion of nonfiction titles. This is a big help if you don't remember whether a book was a true story, or if you want to explore a topic in both fact and fiction.
Both databases include lists of recommended and award-wining books. What Do I Read Next? has a category called Librarian Favorites that includes hundreds of book lists. There's even a list called Sled Dog Bibliography that includes fiction and nonfiction for all ages on the subject of sled dogs.
For book clubs, NoveList has a large selection of discussion guides for both adult and teen books. Each guide includes discussion questions and a biography of the author.
For more in-depth author research, try Literature Resource Center. You can search by author and title for biographical information and literary criticism, or find authors based on such criteria as nationality, genre and time period.
Literature is just one of the many topics you can explore online in the library's Reference Resources. You'll also find authoritative, reliable databases for business and investment research, genealogy, car repair procedures and much more.
To learn more about these resources or to get help with searching them, you can call the library's Central Reference department at 704-4636 (in the Olympian calling area, including Shelton) or 1-800-562-6022 (everywhere else). --Susan M. Colowick
Here's a great book for anyone interested in sailing or history. Have you wondered what Dr. Ballard has been up to since his discovery of the Titanic? Well, this book will bring you up to date. Dr. Ballard has been concentrating on undersea exploration in and around the Mediterranean. Each chapter is a chronological look at the early seafarers. The Phoenicians, Egyptians, Minoans, Greeks and Romans are examined in light of recent discoveries. Spencer Wells is a geneticist and historian who's examining the inter-relations of these cultures by using clues found in DNA. Toni Eugene pulls the whole thing together to present the usual and expected high quality offering that National Geographic is noted for. It's a beautiful book lavish with illustrations, photographs and maps. Among the intriguing topics examined: Was Minoan Thera the basis for the Atlantis legend? Are remains of habitations on the bottom of the Black Sea indications of a deluge that yielded the flood legends from many cultures? Who exactly were the Phoenicians, a trading empire that seemed to spring out of nowhere? The Romans called the Mediterranean Mare nostrum, "our sea." How did they pull off the stunt of using the entire Mediterranean to support their empire? These and other topics are examined drawing on sources in myth, wall paintings and artifacts together with a blend of speculation, theory and the use of new high-tech equipment. I found myself not only reading this volume from cover to cover, but also picking it up again and again to pursue bits and pieces that had caught my interest the first time through. --L. Hamburg Barghouti, Mourid. I Saw Ramallah (2003). 892.786 This memoir and winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for literature from the American University in Cairo was written by Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti. Published in Arabic in 1997, the English translation by Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif (In the Eye of the Sun and Map of Love) appeared in 2000. It reads like a long and eloquent letter home. I Saw Ramallah is one of those incredibly important books like Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi) and Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde (Joe Sacco). Each takes place in a war-torn country, or occupied territory as the case may be, but they aren't abstract political writings. And unlike the average news story, these books don't fail to paint a vivid picture of the daily life of a select number of actual human beings leading their day-to-day lives in violent and complicated surroundings. As the book’s forward by the recently deceased author, political activist, and Palestinian Edward W. Said states: “Necessarily, there is a good deal of politics in Barghouti’s book, but none of it is either abstract or ideologically driven: whatever comes up about politics arises from the lived circumstances of Palestinian life…” Or as Barghouti himself puts it: “Politics is the family at breakfast. Who is there and who is absent and why… Staying away from politics is also politics. Politics is nothing and it is everything.” In 1967, when war broke out, Mourid Barghouti was in Cairo taking a Latin exam. He, like many young Palestinians studying abroad, was forbidden to return. I Saw Ramallah is the story of Mourid Barghouti's return to Palestine after thirty years and the time he spent displaced. During those years he spent varying amounts of time in furnished apartments in locales as disparate as Egypt, the United States, communist Hungary and Kuwait. Seventeen of those years were spent separated from his wife and child, seeing them only twice a year. This detailed memoir describes the exile of one naziheen (displaced one) and the lives with which his is intertwined. It’s a story of extravagant inconvenience, as in the case of the intricate bureaucracy one must pass through in order to cross into Palestine, the required shuffle between the official desks of the Israeli and Palestinian police officers in the small office on the border, and the piles of paperwork needed to prove one’s citizenship in a ‘country’ that doesn’t officially exist. This is a wide ranging study of loss, from the overpowering and sudden like the life of one’s brother, to the subtle and persistent like the olive oil one used to enjoy from one’s own backyard. "Displacement is like death. One thinks it happens only to other people. From the summer of '67 I became that displaced stranger whom I had always thought was someone else." There is no shortage of "other people" in the world, but lengthy intimate letters from them are a bit more rare, and you shouldn't leave this one unopened. --Sara Pete Broks, Paul. Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology (2003). 152Paul Broks feels profoundly ignorant about only one subject: neuropsychology. Unfortunately this also happens to be his area of expertise. Broks confesses his ignorance in a new book, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology. In fragmented case studies, imaginary conversations, short stories and essays, he explores how the physical structure of the brain translates into what we know as the self. Readers who enjoy the case studies of neurologist Oliver Sacks will be drawn to this book. However, Broks is far more self-absorbed than Sacks. While he does present some intriguing cases, most are brief excerpts used to illustrate a particular point in his quest for understanding. The lack of details and follow-through may frustrate some readers, but most will find this an intriguing investigation of the link between the brain and the mind. --S. M. Colowick Davis, Sampson, Jenkins, George & Hunt, Ramek. The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream, (2002). 610.922, and
Jared Diamond won the Pulitzer Prize for his book “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” He’s a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles but began his scientific career in physiology, evolutionary biology and biogeography. Professor Diamond has been elected to numerous scientific academies and has won several prizes and fellowships. He’s published over two hundred articles in several popular scientific magazines as Discover, Natural History and Geo. How he managed to find the time to write this doorstop of a book (it runs 575 pages) is a mystery. In recent decades, archaeologists, climatologists, historians, paleontologists and pollen scientists have confirmed that ecological damage was a root cause of the collapse of past civilizations. But, it’s not quite that simple. It’s pretty dense reading through the author’s prologue, but if you win your way through to Part One, Chapter One, it’s worth the effort. Diamond identifies 12 categories (8 ancient and 4 modern) by which societies undermine themselves. The ancient ones are deforestation, soil problems, water management problems, over hunting, over fishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased per-capita impact of people. In the modern world, we must also deal with human-caused climate change, buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and the full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity. Pretty grim prospect. But what Diamond has discovered is that some societies, ancient and modern, overcame environmental damage while others were so fragile that they collapsed. What’s the difference? He developed a five-point framework of contributing factors. The first four, environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors and friendly trade partners, may or may not all prove significant. The author found no case where a society’s collapse could be blamed entirely on the first factor. The fifth, a society’s responses to its environmental problems, always proves important. Diamond then examines several cultures both ancient and modern. There are societies that fail, such as Easter Island, Norse Greenland, the Mayan, Ansazi and Rwandan. There were other societies just as imperiled that survived, such as Iceland, Tikopia Island, Tokugawa Japan and the New Guinea highlands. A real puzzle is why the Caribbean island of Hispaniola is home to Haiti at one end, with an ever-declining quality of life, and the Dominican Republic at the other, where things are a lot more pleasant. Diamond builds a strong case that the difference is how societies respond to their problems, regardless of whether the response is from the people up or the rulers down. So why should we be concerned? Many of the societies that Diamond examines rose and fell in relative isolation. Now we live in a global community where events on the other side of the world impact us here at home. The twelve categories of environmental degradation affect everyone. We in the First World may think we’re insulated from societal crash. But to paraphrase Diamond, there were many elites in those vanished societies who thought they could remain unaffected by the problems of the society around them. In the final analysis, they had only bought themselves the privilege of being the last to starve. Is Diamond a total pessimist? No, he describes himself as a cautious optimist. He has found, here and there, signs of hope. At one end of New Guinea, he found an oil field that was a true nightmare. Oil spills, natural gas burn off, roads 100 yards wide and employees hunting down the remnants of endangered bird populations. At the other end of New Guinea was another oil field that was barely detectable from the air. So what is the difference? The second field is owned by an oil company that plans 20 years into the future and thinks it’s in its best business interest to properly steward the land in order to maintain its “social license to operate.” That’s a phrase that is being heard more and more in business circles. Everyday people in the First World and the Third World are demanding that renewable resources such as forests and fisheries be managed cleanly and sustainably. Nonrenewable resources must be extracted cleanly with little waste. Diamond uses the example of the Netherlands to illustrate that “we’re all in this together.” The Netherlands has perhaps the world’s highest level of environmental awareness and membership in environmental organizations. The author speculates that this is because over one-fifth of the Netherlands is below sea level. The Dutch are very aware that if the dikes and the pumps fail, they’ll all drown together. To put it another way, we all live downstream from each other. --L. Hamburg Esquith, Rafe. There Are No Shortcuts (2003). Biography In The Pact and There Are No Shortcuts, men from both coasts and both sides of the teacher’s desk tell inspiring stories of how belief in oneself and others, willingness to take risks, and hard work can make dreams come true. Eleven-year-old George Jenkins sat in the dentist’s chair in Newark, watching the dentist’s gloved hands pick up an instrument. "What’s that for?" he asked. The dentist explained, went on to tell his young patient the names of his teeth—and then quizzed him. George’s curiosity was the beginning of his dream to be a dentist and to make a difference in his community. As a high school senior, he talked his two best friends into going to college. Young teacher Rafe Esquith put together a class trip for 25 elementary students to the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. The plays were great, and the students had a wonderful time at their hotel, complete with Olympic-size pool. When Rafe mentioned the hotel to one of his students, she said that it was okay, but not as nice as the places she’d stayed at in Hawaii and New York. Rafe came to realize that he had worked very hard to bring a special experience to children who didn’t need it from him. And that what he needed to do was to find those kids who did need him. The Pact is the story of how three young men—Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt—made a pledge to help each other make it through college and dental or medical school. They grew up in poor neighborhoods haunted by hopelessness and crime, neighborhoods that had already swallowed up many of their friends. But by studying together, working summer jobs together, and talking about all the challenges of college and medical school, they looked out for each other. When one got discouraged, the other two were there for him. Their families helped, too, whenever they ran short on money to buy textbooks. All three men graduated and are now practicing physicians, and through their Three Doctors Foundation have created a scholarship program. There Are No Shortcuts is a story from the teacher’s side of the desk. Rafe Esquith left his first school and chose to teach fifth grade students in a poor, multilingual neighborhood in Central Los Angeles. He brought innovative teaching methods into the classroom, but also one very old-fashioned teaching method: hard work. There are no shortcuts to learning declares this teacher, who comes to school early, leaves late, teaches music at lunch, and tutors on Saturdays. Face it, he tells readers: although learning can be fun, it isn’t easy. Constantly looking for ways to bring the world into his classroom, he immerses his students in mathematics, music, writing, science, history, geography, literature, and more. They read Shakespeare and Maya Angelou and love them both. Peppering There Are No Shortcuts are vignettes of student successes and setbacks, and not a few stories of battles with school administrators and fellow teachers for whom teaching is nothing but shortcuts. Rafe shares plenty of strong opinions about teaching with the reader. For example, he questions the efficacy of prolonged bilingual education. Rafe teaches only in English, believing that while children can stay close to their family culture, fluency in English is crucial for school success, college entrance exams, employment, and financial well-being. For Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt, there were no shortcuts. Rafe Esquith made a pact with his students. These men continue to make a difference in the lives of others, in Newark, Los Angeles—and wherever anyone picks up and reads their books. --Kristine Mahood Fagan, Brian. The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization (2004). 551.6 and Harris, Robert. Pompeii: a novel (2003). Historical Fiction Global warming is virtually a household term these days. Politicians, governments, scientists and the rest of us debate almost daily over whether it’s happening, what the causes might be and what can be done. The Long Summer: how climate changed civilization, offers the perspective of thousands of years and a multitude of human civilizations on the question of what’s going on with the planet’s climate. All of recorded history and much pre-history have taken place during the “long summer,” the 15,000-year period of warming known as the Holocene that has followed the great Ice Age. During these millennia humans have moved into ever more complicated relationships with each other and their environment, from small groups of hunter-gatherers who survived through moving on to new territory, through the beginnings of agriculture and “rooted-ness,” to the enormous cities of today. Fagan, a Professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, asserts that these societal changes have been strongly affected by conditions of climate, and bases his account on the latest archaeological discoveries made through new techniques of tree ring documentation, radiocarbon dating, sonic reflection probes and sediment cores from rivers, lakes and oceans. He paints a vivid picture of human ingenuity constantly pushing against the limits imposed by climate, soil and water to insure a food supply. Again and again, however, societies have considered themselves masters of the surrounding world, only to be vanquished by natural forces beyond their control: alterations in the earth’s angle to the sun, major volcanic events that reduce absorption of solar radiation, El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shifts and others. These major changes trigger dramatic disruptions in climate that can persist for centuries. Drought, rise and fall in sea levels, sudden cooling or warming have resulted in the collapse of entire civilizations from the Sumerian city states through the Roman Empire, ancient Egypt, the Maya civilization, the Anasazi – in fact just about all human societies that have preceded those of present time have thrived or disappeared in accordance with prevailing climatic conditions. In his epilogue, Fagan emphasizes that the important issue at this point in the acceleration of global warming in recent decades is not its cause but that we live in a time of the largest human populations ever seen on the planet, with unprecedented numbers living in cities. He states that the “potential for disaster is almost unrecognizable in historical terms…Of the six billion of us who now inhabit the earth, hundreds of millions still subsist from harvest to harvest…We can only imagine the death toll in a future era when climatic swings may be faster, more extreme, and completely unpredictable because of human interference with the atmosphere.” And, he asks, is there anyone noticing the approaching storm of disaster? Robert Harris’ novel, Pompeii, reads well in tandem with The Long Summer (above). His is a story of climatic and environmental disaster pinpointed on the surface of the planet to the curve of the Bay of Neapolis in A.D. 79, two days before and the day of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The reader moves from the global and millennial perspective offered in Fagan’s book to the intense drama of mere hours in a small, but—at the time—important corner of the Roman Empire. Marcus Attilius Primus, a hydro-engineer descended from a family of “aquarii,” has been sent from Rome to determine what is causing the decline of water flow in the aqueduct, Aqua Augusta, which serves the nine towns around the Bay of Naples. The aquarius originally in charge of the Augusta has disappeared, the crew who assist in the aqueduct’s maintenance are scornful of the young, big city newcomer and mystery and superstition cloud the indicators of where and how the Augusta is failing. Knowing what ultimately happened only serves to heighten the tension felt by the reader as the minutes and hours pass, bringing Attilius closer and closer to “ground zero,” Pompeii, in his search for the rupture in the aqueduct. Harris immerses his story in fascinating details about Roman engineering, social mores and lifestyle, the land and its inhabitants and, above all, the progress toward eruption in Mount Vesuvius. Each chapter is titled according to its time of day in Roman notation, and begins with brief, informative notes from modern texts on volcanology that give clues to what is taking place beneath the earth. Among the cast of characters Pliny figures prominently and engagingly. It is one of the delights of the book to have the bonus of a humanized glimpse into the character of this great writer from so long ago, along with nuggets from his texts. --Kristin Blalack Franzen, Jonathan. How to Be Alone: Essays (2002). 814.54 This collection of essays written between the mid-1990s and 2001 reveals Jonathan Franzen to be a writer who takes the time to think things through, to hatch out ideas, to follow the peregrination of those ideas, and to find just the right details and words which not only express those ideas, but which set off reverberations in the reader’s mind. Franzen is perhaps best known for his third novel, The Corrections, which won the 2001 National Book Award and was selected as an Oprah Book Club book—until the author declined inclusion, setting off a little firestorm. In an era of writing celebrated for being glib, cutting-edge, and "smart," Franzen’s work is thoughtful, resonant, compassionate, and devastatingly, sometimes painfully funny. The somber charm of Jonathan Franzen’s writing is exemplified through a visit to the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, chronicled in the essay "Scavaging." Built by a wealthy eccentric, the museum houses a large collection of tools and inventions left in the dust by 19th and 20th century mass production. Franzen strolls past exhibits of the usual suspects—butter churns, shoemaking tools, horse-drawn carriages—before stopping dead in his tracks before a glass case labeled OBSOLETE TECHOLOGY. For it is there, perched atop a stack of moldering eight-track tapes, that he spies the exact duplicate of one of the instruments that he is currently using as a telephone. This leads Franzen to ruminate upon the lengths to which he has gone to shield his basic black 1982 A.T.&T. living room telephone from voice mail systems—for which the deepest insult is the word "rotary"—by using his less convenient bedroom touchtone telephone to make business calls. He next reflects upon such other relics as his ancient TV set and clunky 1970s stereo system (minus CD player), and then upon the familial influences that led him to offer these hapless appliances safe harbor—his parents’ Depression-era thrift and his older brothers’ 1960s rejection of rabid consumerism. Born in 1959, Franzen nonetheless seldom races after the Next Big Thing. As a writer, Franzen has resorted to imaginative and inexpensive repairs of everything from hulking old typewriters to a computer. (Ironically, the computer fix involved a pencil torqued with a rubber band.) Further meditations on scrounging the streets for furniture and building materials lead Franzen to conclude, "Use and abandonment are the aquifer through which consumer objects percolate, shedding the taint of mass production and emerging as historied individuals." Other essays address bizarre summer jobs, the right to privacy, the state of literature in America, reading, celebrity, Franzen’s father’s last illness, and the tobacco industry. A magisterial account of the woes of the residents of the 60640 zip code in Chicago unfolds in "Lost in the Mail." The longest essay in the collection, it is a saga of undelivered mail: hidden in the back of mail trucks, tucked into storage units, stuffed into closets at home, burned under a viaduct, or simply buried. Franzen steadily illuminates the situation, conveying its humor without resorting to snap judgments, ridicule, or sneers. And what is it that teaches a person how to be alone? In "The Reader in Exile," Franzen explores an activity that well may sustain human beings as "historied individuals." Reading. --Kristine Mahood Glick, Daniel. Monkey Dancing: a father, two kids and a journey to the ends of the earth (2003). 306.8742 What do you do when your wife of fifteen years leaves you, your beloved older brother dies painfully from cancer during the year following and you realize you just aren’t having enough time with your two kids who will be grown and gone before you know it? Daniel Glick, journalist and single-parent, took to the Road, heading out on a six-month ‘round-the-world journey with son Kolya, thirteen, and daughter Zoe, age nine. There is another, global, concern motivating his decision to make this trip at this time: he wants his children to see some of the fast-disappearing environments and animals of our planet before they’re gone. As a child Glick had traveled extensively with his parents and brothers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and again as a newly-wed for three years with his wife, through all of Asia. He has vivid memories of those experiences and knows they shaped his love of Earth’s wonders and commitment to conservation. He wants to give similar opportunities to Kolya and Zoe. The trio begins their odyssey in Australia and moves on at a leisurely pace through Southeast Asia, Nepal and India, and then to Europe for a quick re-acculturation before returning home to Colorado. Their story is both a richly descriptive travelogue and a deeply personal narrative of the processing of loss, grief and new ways of relating to each other. --Kristin Blalack Guest, Emma. Children of AIDS: Africa’s orphan crisis (2001). 362.7309 Emma Guest, originally from England, has traveled extensively in Uganda, Zambia and South Africa, interviewing grandmothers, orphans, social workers and staff of nongovernmental organizations about the AIDS epidemic and its impact on people’s lives, especially those of the children left behind without parents. Her book includes her observations of what has been happening due to the spread of AIDS in Africa, interspersed with anecdotal transcriptions of her interviews. As a result, the reader can get beyond the horrific statistics to a richly personalized understanding of the situation. It is heartening to learn that individuals, communities and organizations within African countries are actively developing creative ways to help the orphans. The overwhelming numbers of children in need now and in the future, requiring a large and ongoing commitment of financial support from foreign donors, is also very evident. Many lives and much time have been wasted due to the failure of governments both in and outside of Africa to recognize soon enough the threat to global health and stability brought by this epidemic. Emma Guest shows that the political will is building slowly, but we must keep in mind that there is no “quick fix” and that focused attention will be necessary for decades to come -- Kristin Blalack Jenkins, Peter. Looking for Alaska (2001). 917.9804 Alaska holds a fascination for a wide array of people, from rugged individualists to lovers of wide-open spaces, from avid hunters and fishers to devoted historians and photographers. We are curious about The North with its promise of beguiling adventure, scarcity of population, majestic mountains, untainted tundra, abundant wildlife, vast geography, and profound beauty beyond compare. We love to tell Alaska stories; we love to hear Alaska stories. Peter Jenkins gives us all this and more in his 2001 travel chronicle Looking for Alaska. Peter Jenkins writes in a similar style to his classic best selling memoir, A Walk Across America, which he wrote in 1979. He has since written several other travel chronicles including The Walk West, Across China, and Along the Edge of America. In Looking for Alaska Jenkins describes his varied journeys throughout the State of Alaska, from Cordova to Point Hope, from the Brooks Range to the Alaska Range, from Grizzly Flats to Unalakleet. His original books focused on walking as his means of travel, but this book includes much more than walking. He writes about boats, sleds, planes, cars, snow machines, kayaks and more. He introduces us to sled dogs, mushers, homesteaders, bush pilots, artists, politicians, whalers, salmon fishers, moose hunters, to name a few. We learn about salmon-drying, the Bachelors Auction, the Iditarod, totems, wilderness living, the Iceworm Festival, and much more. Throughout his travels Jenkins describes the many places, animals, waterways, trees, structures, geography, and the entire area in such a way that we can see these places in our mind’s eye. But Peter Jenkins’ forte is his description of the people he meets. He spends time with them, he listens to them, and he observes them. He also reserves judgment of them. Both ordinary and extraordinary people become fascinating with his vivid and sensitive descriptions and insights. Readers will feel as if they, too, have met these people along with Jenkins. A desirable feature of any travel book is photography, especially in color. Looking for Alaska contains 29 color photographs by the author who is an award-winning photographer. The photos are varied and vivid, revealing of the experience he had throughout Alaska. There are also several black and white photographs, by the author and others, mostly of people featured in the book. For many of us, Alaska does indeed have a lure. As Peter Jenkins writes, "No one is ever the same after coming back from Alaska." Libraries have many novels, non-fiction books, videos, and magazines that feature Alaska and its vast land, culture, and inspiration. While you are at the library, be sure to check out Peter Jenkins’ Looking for Alaska. It is a treat for armchair travelers, fans of Peter Jenkins, people lovers, and Alaska aficionados everywhere. --Sally Nash Johnson, Dave. I Just Bought A Digital Camera, Now What?! (2001). 778.3 CURE FOR DIGITAL CAMERA WOES: Some of my acquaintances refer to me as a Neo-Luddite. Having convinced myself to purchase some new bit of digital nonsense, I usually leave it safely caged in its box for awhile. For a few weeks, I’ll occasionally poke it with a sharp stick. So it went with my digital camera. I’ll spare you the technological horror stories: The discovery that the camera software wouldn’t play nice with my operating platform. The two hour struggle to crop a picture. As with tales of a break-up with your significant other, no one is much interested. They’ve got problems of their own. Dave Johnson covers digital photography in a weekly PC World magazine email newsletter. He’s an award-winning wildlife photographer and the author or two other books on digital photography. Mr. Johnson narrates his text in plain English and doesn’t assume you know a lot about digital cameras. He anticipates problems the digital camera owner may have and dispels anxiety with a casual and humorous style. I’m sure my blood pressure would be in a lot better shape, had I had this book from the beginning. --Lew Hamburg Knapp, Caroline. Appetites: Why Women Want (2003). 362.1968 In this monumental and bold undertaking, recovered anorexic Caroline Knapp defines appetite as more than just the physical hunger for food; she uses the word in a broader sense to express the longings and needs for connection, pleasure, career success, love, joy, sex and peace. From this vantage point she examines the challenge women face in their attempts to connect to, honor and feed the needs of their body and soul in a culture that simultaneously stimulates and shames female appetite, externalizes and commercializes women’s bodies and sexuality, socializes girls in self-denial despite feminist strides, and dispirits women from breaking outside of long held gender roles. She articulates this challenge with the question "Can a woman be not just an astrophysicist but a big, powerful, lusty astrophysicist who feels unequivocally entitled to food and sex and pleasure and acclaim?" By weaving social commentary with her own story about battling with anorexia and with the myriad struggles of other women, Knapp eloquently and poignantly puts words to the inner worlds of contemporary women in a way that has heretofore been unacknowledged. In doing so she explores eating disorders, obesity, body image, addictions, compulsive spending, self-loathing, self-mutilation, restrained ambition, sexual promiscuity and unhealthy relationships. While many authors have written on each of these issues individually, and some of the topics are nothing new, Knapp’s work is unique in that it synthesizes all of them as the circuitous routes and ineffective substitutes women use in their quest to name and satisfy their natural and healthy desires. While her interpretation of these issues is disturbingly insightful and her analogies are clever and evocative, some of her sources for statistics are dubious. For example, she occasionally cites fashion and popular culture magazines when sticking to more authoritative sources such as studies in academic journals would have given her work more credibility. Through her luscious and profound writing Knapp entreats women to reach inside, identify their true hungers and then give themselves permission to feed those hungers. Knapp describes this long road as "murky and non –linear", with progress made in the tiniest of increments, as she relays some of the ways women have successfully traveled this journey. It is tragic that once she mastered the journey herself she suddenly died of cancer at the age of 42, before her book went to print. Her legacy is a validating and inspiring contribution to literature on women’s issues. --Davinna Artibey
A single debilitating disease accounts for more missed work days than any other, causing a greater loss in productivity than all cancers combined. Wouldn't it make sense to eradicate such a disease? Peter Kramer hopes that his new book, Against Depression, will provide a definitive answer to that question. Kramer, a practicing psychiatrist, achieved fame in the mid-1990s after the publication of Listening to Prozac. In that book he described the personality changes that some of his patients experienced when treated with Prozac, the first of a new type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. The success of Listening to Prozac led Kramer to an involuntary immersion in the topic of depression. For more than a decade he has been reading, lecturing and thinking about the subject. In both of his books he acknowledges that the older drugs are just as effective in treating depression (although they have more side effects), but new research has shown the SSRIs to have added benefits, such as decreasing the "stickiness" of blood platelets and reducing heart-rate variability. This is not a self-help book. Rather it's an exploration of changing attitudes toward "the most devastating disease known to humankind." The author uses recent scientific discoveries and his own extensive experience with depression to debunk many long-cherished myths about melancholy. Perhaps the most persistent myth surrounding depression is the idea that it fuels creativity. "What if Prozac had been available in Van Gogh's time?" people regularly ask Kramer. In Against Depression he persuasively argues that bouts of creativity are more likely to accompany diseases other than depression, most notably epilepsy (as with Dostoyevsky and Van Gogh), tuberculosis (Chopin and Checkhov) and the manic phase of bipolar disorder (Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe). Kramer describes depression as a failure of resilience. Not only is the depressed person emotionally fragile, but on the most basic level the brains of depressed people lack the protective mechanisms and regenerative ability of a healthy brain. High levels of stress hormones also affect other systems, leading to bone loss and heart disease. In this respect, he compares depression to other multisystem diseases, such as diabetes. Depression, Kramer writes, "would qualify as a disease if it had no effect whatsoever on mood." Why then are we reluctant to treat depression as we would any other illness? One by one Kramer tackles the reasons people have given for considering depression less serious than other conditions. He presents convincing evidence that depression offers no real benefit to society or to individual sufferers. Kramer acknowledges that in a small minority of patients, antidepressant medication can increase the risk of suicide during the first few weeks. However, this is a rare side effect of the medication (and it may in fact be related to anxiety rather than depression). In nations where SSRIs have been introduced, the suicide rate always goes down. At times, Against Depression can be challenging to read, as the author weaves case histories and details of scientific research together with examples from art, history, literature and classical mythology. But Kramer is a gifted writer as well as a caring clinician and acknowledged expert on depression. His thorough analysis of this important subject is well worth the effort.
Well, if you wonder what happened to the guy who wrote "The Code: Time-Tested Secrets for Getting What You Want from Women - Without Marrying Them!" (1996), here it is. A year after rocketing onto the bestseller list with his misogynistic little book, Larry met a wonderful woman, fell in love and was married. Ah, but it gets better. Payback, karma, poetic justice; whatever you want to call it. It's a wonderful thing. Tech-boy's dot com bubble burst simultaneously with closing on a house referred to in real estate lore as a "fixer-upper." Even though he can't tell the difference between a flat-head and a phillips screwdriver he decides that he'll fake his way onto a construction crew. This will give him the skills he needs to renovate his house and bring in some much needed income. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Nothing entertains like seeing the arrogant brought low. Or to put a kinder spin on the story, to see the unexamined life become the examined life. A rather shallow fellow gets a bit of depth in his life and discovers what is really important to him and what lengths he is willing to go to get and maintain the things that he values. In hindsight he sees the humor in his predicaments. Along the way, the reader will also pick up odds and ends of home renovation wisdom. Such as the two kinds of asbestos, the one that will kill you and the other that won't. Or that zoning boards are probably not on the take. If they were, more things would get done. Those home renovation shows on cable? Renovation porn. Like ads for computers that never show the snarl of cables, the do-it-yourself shows never show the ugly side of demolition. How trips to the nearest home whatever superstore can destroy relationships. Read this book and make an informed decision as to weather you want to risk life, limb, pocketbook and relationship on a "fixer-upper." Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (2003). 364.1523 This latest nonfiction work by Erik Larson (Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History) holds the tension like a fine suspense novel, and after a chapter or two, I found myself actively seeking and anticipating the outcomes and signposts of a most unusual and impressive subject research. It is written in alternating chapters but of simultaneous development: the first being the historical moment, conception, and development of the 1893 Chicago World's Exposition; and the second being the life of Dr. H. H. Holmes, an imaginative, entrepreneurial, and pathologically dishonest spirit who claimed something between 9 and 200 murder victims before, during, and following the World's Exposition's six month run. This maddest of madmen practiced his medicine and guile from his "castle," a self-designed hotel of disappearing hallways, false-backed rooms, and macabre appliances that was situated outside though proximate to Jackson Park, the 630 acre site of the Exposition. In the reading of this true tale we are relieved that there is no intrigue between the evil doctor and the many famous artists, scientists, and performers involved in the Exposition's development. Indeed, it is rendered clear that the author has simply isolated two, for the most part, unrelated events that happened to occur in the same time and place, Chicago in the day of her 1893 Exposition. So that, alternated with the disturbing and fascinating chapters on the murderer Holmes, Larson gives us all the tension of the great Exposition taking shape, and under the particular guidance of its visionary director, Daniel Burnbaum, a struggle made of unfavorable weather, cost overruns, gathering national economic depression, onsite labor problems and deaths, bruised artistic egos of national renown, and impossible if not ridiculous time constraints. Before the findings of this two-headed tale, the reader is left reeling by the utter depravity and descent of Holmes the killer, and at the same time can easily be elevated by the transforming qualities of the Exposition to its peoples, makers and users, who knew only to imagine, sponsor, and consume a rare and monumental achievement. --Angus Heriot
It’s hard to wrap your mind a disaster as extensive as Hurricane Katrina if, like me, you haven’t lived through one. Isaac’s Storm, the vivid portrayal of the hurricane and tidal surge that killed thousands and devastated Galveston, Texas in September 1900, brings the reader as close as anything to some understanding of people’s experience of the storm and the aftermath. Larson (who also wrote the acclaimed “Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and the Madness at the Fair that Changed America”) achieves it by the depth of his research, the skill of his writing, and the array of viewpoints he renders. Although I’d first read Isaac’s Storm back in 1999 when it was published, so vividly does Larson detail the hurricane and tidal surge that reports on Katrina seemed somehow like personal memories. Larson recreates an era when energy and confidence were so high, even the weather was held to be predictable and ultimately even controllable. He reveals weather bureau errors that sidelined warnings that could have saved thousands of lives. The most egregious: When Cuban weather forecasters correctly warned U.S. weather officials of the immensity and path of the storm, Willis Moore, chief of the fledgling National Weather Bureau, in a fateful display of arrogance, halted all weather telegraphs coming from Cuba. The story unfolds from multiple viewpoints: the sea captain who logged the storm’s first noteworthy stirrings; survivors such as Galveston weather bureau chief Isaac Cline and others of different backgrounds and locations in the city; even the eye of the hurricane itself. He cuts away and back from one view to another, building tension and a sense of doom while telling the story. The description of the hurricane’s development from a mundane dip in atmospheric pressure to a “moderate breeze” far out in the Atlantic to “cataclysm” is mesmerizing. Other passages, describing individuals’ experiences as the tide swept through Galveston’s flat streets, and what was left when it receded, are unforgettable. How Larson does the research for his books is a fascinating topic of its own and a good argument for perusing authors’ notes and attending their public talks whenever possible. Larson prefers to do his research on the ground, not on the Internet—through his own senses, seeing with his own eyes, touching the century-old papers and historical items. He is fascinated by the late 19th and early 20th century, an era when people wrote, not keyboarded, their thoughts. What does the handwriting reveal of the writer’s frame of mind? What part of the chronicler’s tale was so stressful it caused him or her to drive the pen deeper and deeper and then right through the paper? His method pays off. Larson’s writing is visual, tactile, auditory. You’re there. Larson is a scrupulous researcher of information. He tracked down the story from conflicting, sometimes self-serving, politically motivated reports as well as hundreds of personal accounts. For this book he worked with weather experts until he understood the hurricane so completely he could give us its biography and put us in its eye. A quick scan of the book’s pages and pages of endnotes and sources tracks Larson’s steps through modern Galveston as well as through archives, museums, libraries, laboratories, weather bureaus and agencies such as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The result, combined with great writing, is both instructive and fascinating. Larson tells us that the casualties of “Isaac’s storm” are estimated at between 6,000 and 10,000 persons. Over a century later, we have reason to hope that Galveston’s is still “the deadliest hurricane in history.” --L. Ingle Lubrano, Alfred. Limbo; Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (2004). 305.513 In America, the last unmentionable, the elephant in the living room that no one can talk about is class distinction. Alfred Lubrano is the son of a Brooklyn bricklayer. He is a reporter and writer. How he made the leap from blue-collar to white-collar is only part of this story. He also examines the stories of many other people who have made the same journey. Lubrano calls these people “Straddlers.” The process can be painful. Family, the old neighborhood, the familiar can exert pressure to maintain the status quo. Lubrano examines the phenomenon of “black-hole” families who do nothing to support the Straddler and often actively undermine their efforts. I have seen this kind of family in action. Their attitude is “Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re better than us?” Even families that support the Straddler often have no conception of what their children actually do. Trips back to the old neighborhood become infrequent, as there is less and less to talk about. The Straddler enters the workforce with the education but without the cultural capital of the children of the middle class. The perceived unearned entitlement of co-workers and bosses often enrages the Straddler. They feel as if they must become something they’re not by selling off pieces of their personalities to fit in and advance. The politics, backstabbing and beating around the bush disgust the Straddler. Language differences and a lack of cultural confidence further widen the gap. Lubrano’s book is a very readable sociological study. His skillful choice of interview subjects holds the readers interest. This book may go a long way toward bridging the gap between blue and white-collar people. At least the book will encourage a dialogue on a sensitive area of our culture. --Lew Hamburg Marriner, Mike and Gebhard, Nathan. Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Path in Life (2003). 650.1 What are you going to do with your life? Quick: decide right now, take the right courses in high school, jump on the right track in college, get the interviews, and start work. This works quite well for many people, who craft happy and productive careers from the get-go. Many other people find that their work lives do not slip neatly from one slot to the next. Instead, they zig, they zag, they follow interests, they take jobs to learn useful skills, and eventually they find out what they’re going to do with their life. Roadtrip Nation is a collection of interviews with successful people who took some zigs and zags along their roads to success. As college juniors, Mike Marriner and Nathan Gebhard were stumped about what to do with their lives. They had interests and skills, but no clue about how to craft them into careers. One night they came up with an idea: to ask successful people how they figured out what to do with their lives. The two friends emailed and phoned hundreds of successful people and talked them into giving interviews. They tried to get grant money, but instead a book publisher offered to advance them money so they could rent an RV, buy gas and food, and basically stay alive during the roadtrip. Then they hit the road that summer, driving from interview to interview. The summer after senior year, Mike and Nathan scheduled a second road trip for which they bought a 1985 RV with a roar like a Harley. Roadtrip Nation collects the top interviews from those trips, with people as disparate as big shots at Starbucks, Nike, Dell, and National Geographic as well as a wardrobe stylist for Madonna, a lobster fisherman, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, restaurant owners, a beer brewer, a Washington D.C. lobbyist, and a director for “Saturday Night Live.” Each interview begins with a multi-signed signpost or “open road map,” which shows the stops (and apparent sidetracks) along the interviewee’s road to success. Next comes a Q&A interview, photos, and notes about how Mike and Nathan scheduled the interview. They also throw in funny stories about life on the road, like trying to park a 40-foot RV in front of Rockefeller Center in New York. The book concludes with excellent advice for setting up and conducting your own roadtrip of interviews. Mike and Nathan explain how to figure out who you’d like to interview and how to get referrals. If you don’t know anybody who knows somebody, not to worry, they counsel: pick up names from trade magazine mastheads, and credits for music, TV, and movies. Email or phone them up, and be very nice to the administrative assistant who answers. Explain that you only want 20 minutes of time, and tell the person or their assistant that you will not be asking for a job. Mike and Nathan provide five open-ended questions and advise interviewers to listen carefully to what the interviewee says and ask follow-up questions. Be prepared, they add, to answer a few questions yourself, about your interests and aspirations. Close the interview by asking if you can email the person later. And definitely mail a thank-you note. Lively, shrewd, and funny, the book reflects the adventurous spirit of its authors, and the variety of ways in which people craft their lives. --Kristine Mahood Martin, Lisa. The Cool Chick's Guide to Baseball (2003). 796.357 As the Major League postseason approaches, many women (and some men) will increasingly find their loved ones discussing RBIs, ERAs, DLs and other mysteries of the nation's pastime. Lisa Martin explains all these terms and much more in The Cool Chick's Guide to Baseball. The bright yellow, purse-sized paperback includes sections on fashion (team colors), food (ballpark calorie counts) and shopping (what to give your man if he's a baseball fan). Some readers may be put off by the emphasis on stereotypical female interests; the author spares no analogies in appealing to her title audience with phrases like ways to keep the guy from scoring. No crash course can substitute for years of immersion in the game, but don't be surprised if, after reading this book, you find yourself joining the next heated discussion of the infield fly rule. --S.M. Colowick
Published by Seattle’s Fantagraphic Books (Ghost World, La Perdida, Palestine, etc.) this 300-page collection contains 28 generally short interviews by Kristine McKenna accompanied by a portrait of the interviewee drawn by a Fantagraphics artist. From Nina Simone to Leonard Cohen to Merle Haggard, this is definitely a compilation of conversations worth reading. Each of the interviews begins with a brief biography of the interviewee, generally a few short but informative paragraphs long. As described in Kristine McKenna’s introduction, her interviewing method generally includes “falling into a temporary state of enchantment that lasts about a month.” During this period she ponders her subject, researches the life and work of this individual, and decides “which of the great mysteries of life he might know something about.” Thus her list of questions is born. Her first question for James Brown was “What gave you the nerve to be James Brown?” This fascinating collection kicks off with an interview with Kenneth Anger, an author whose works I was in no way familiar with. Anger’s hobbies include “hexing enemies, tap dancing, and astral projection.” When he’s not busy with those hobbies he is writing Hollywood exposés using mental telepathy as one of his research tools. This interview is definitely indicative of the rest in terms of its ability to entertain. And it entertains even when you don’t have any sort of vested interest in the one answering the questions. Even if you are as indifferent to Robert Crumb’s work as I am (and you couldn’t possibly be more indifferent than me) or as much of a stranger to William Eggleston’s photography, you will probably find something about Katherine’s interviews with these characters that is at least vaguely intriguing. Each chapter is often a mix of two or more interviews she has done over the years and her introductions often give amusing insights into the attitudes of her subjects at the time of the interview, as well as a bit of context regarding their lives. For instance, she notes before Mr. Brown’s very cheery interview that took place in 1979, in which he seemed convinced that hard times were a thing of his past, that he went on to spend 1988-1991 in prison and his wife died in 1996 during a cosmetic surgery operation. And so each chapter is a tiny celebrity time capsule waiting to be probed. The span of these interviews is the late 1970s to the beginning of the 21st century so even if you’re familiar with say Nick Cave’s current feelings on how being drunk changes his personality, you might be interested in the answer he gave to Katherine in Tijuana in 1984. So whether you want to pry into the lives of your idols, quench your idle curiosity, or just pore over some pen and ink portraits this book will probably do something for you. Read it to see how many times Ray Charles calls Ms. McKenna “babe,” to find out what George Clinton hoped to accomplish by holding a press conference in the nude, to know Leonard Cohen’s definition of glamour, or to find out why Nico wrote a song for Charles Manson. And in the spirit of the art of interviewing I will leave you with just one question… Can you really die in peace without knowing Tom Waits’ favorite beverage, whether or not Neil Young prays, or if Mel Tormé was bothered when people ate during his performances? Let the answers guide you on your spiritual journey towards (or away) from the Book of Changes. Note: Fantagraphics published “Talk to Her: Interviews,” also by Kristine McKenna, in 2004. --S. Peté Montgomery, Sy. Journey of the Pink Dolphins (2000). 599.538 Dolphins have fascinated humans for thousands of years, appearing in art and stories everywhere. Most of us are familiar with those dolphins dwelling in the oceans; less-known are freshwater dolphins inhabiting rivers in Asia and South America. Sy Montgomery, naturalist-writer, travels to the Amazon River seeking the mysterious Encantados, the botos, or pink dolphins. If you’ve ever had a yearning to see the Amazon region, Montogmery’s story will give you a vivid sense of the incredible beauty, outrageous physical challenges and wealth of life forms to be found there. Not for the faint of heart, the Amazon rewards those who are persistent and flexible with life-changing experiences. Montgomery weaves past and present, mythical and scientific, together into a luminous portrait of the botos, a region, a people and an environment. Wonder and sorrow are partners moment by moment as one moves through this landscape at once so powerful with life yet held in a balance so fragile. --Kristin Blalack Officer, Charles. A Fabulous Kingdom: the exploration of the Arctic (2001). 919.8 Henry Hudson, Robert Peary and Admiral Richard Byrd are almost household names, linked to Arctic exploration. We think of Hudson’s voyages in the early seventeenth century as the beginning of efforts to find a Northwest Passage over the North Pole. In actuality voyages to the far north began 2000 years earlier, with the Greeks and the Romans. A Fabulous Kingdom brings to life these ancient mariners and those who followed, in their quests for riches, for the Land of the Blessed, for further mapping of the known world, for a shortcut to the splendors of the Far East. The myth, even conviction, that an Open Polar Sea existed persisted until 1880, inspiring countless expeditions. Subsequently the goal became to be first to reach the North Pole. The illusions, delusions and even dishonesty that shaped beliefs about the nature of the mysterious Arctic for so many hundred of years make for fascinating reading. --Kristin Blalack Orenstein, Catherine. Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (2003). 398.2094 Seventeenth century storybooks, 18th century woodcuts, 20th century cartoons, sculptures in ritzy New York city galleries, psychology textbooks, the silver screen, glossy ads for lipstick, perfume, and salad dressing, feminist poetry, puppet shows, pop songs from the 1960s and adult videos… It’s not my 2004 birthday wish list; these are actually just a few of the places where one might encounter references to that incredibly pervasive cultural icon known as Little Red Riding Hood. From Charles Perrault’s French version of the tale written in 1697 to the 1996 film Freeway starring Reese Witherspoon, Catherine Orenstein’s impressively thorough cultural study, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, describes and deconstructs a wide range of this story’s often very disparate incarnations. Each of this book’s ten chapters begins with a description, summary, translation, or a direct copy of one of the story’s many adaptations and is then followed by a bit of socio-cultural context. Chapter I, for example, “Little Red Riding Hood: To Be Chaste – or Chased?” begins with an English translation of Charles Perrault’s Le petit chaperon rouge and then goes on to give a bit of insight into the French Court of the Sun King at Versailles (the story’s original intended audience). Orenstein explains that everyone knew at the time, for example, that the phrase elle avoit vű le loup “she’d seen the wolf,” signified the loss of virginity. She maintains that Perrault’s tale was meant as a warning to well-bred girls not to fool around. This is not one of the jollier versions of the tale. The wolf devours little Red Riding Hood and this very short story abruptly ends there. The mariage de raison (“an affair orchestrated by parents for social and economic advancement, often no more than a crass exchange of assets”), after all, could not take place with an ‘unchaste’ woman. Marrying without one’s parent’s, or rather father’s, permission was not only frowned upon, it was illegal. So this tale was a “what not to do” story not exactly for children, but for those who had reached the age of marriage, which at the time was often as young as 12. This chapter, like the rest of the book, is sprinkled with illustrations that are either from the era addressed or that illustrate a particular aspect of the story explored in the chapter. Two reprints of pictures that accompanied the story at the tale-end of the 1600s and a print of a blushing Red Riding Hood in bed with a wolf accompany grace the pages of Chapter I. In the more than three hundred years of Little Red Riding Hood’s existence her story has been told by paternalistic guardians of the old ways, revolutionary radical feminists, and all kinds of people in between. She’s been a weak young girl saved by a woodsman, an unwitting cannibal, a mutilated victim of a serial killer, a prurient cartoon nightclub singer, a rape victim, a wolf hunter, a gender bender, a porn star, and an empowered girl from the lower classes. If you’re interested in reading the biography of a fictional girl whose name has rolled off countless tongues across Europe and beyond for countless reasons, then this book will definitely be worth your time. --Sara Peté
Here's a collection of essays by Susan Orlean, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. She Also wrote "The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup" and "The Orchid Thief." You may remember "The Orchid Thief" as that really great book that was turned into the truly awful movie "Adaptation." Of course, I realize that an author sells the movie rights to a book, kisses it goodbye and sends it out in the world. Now I want to see someone film "The Orchid Thief" as written, not some bastardized account of adapting a good book into an abysmal movie. That ax being ground, we'll move onto the book at hand. When Ms. Orlean refers to travel she not only means exotic places but also little known sites right here in the good old U.S. Perhaps the World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Illinois or a visit to a large private collection of tigers in New Jersey. She even makes a foray to Midland, Texas, pre-presidential ascension. Sometimes her trips take her just a few blocks away to a New York inner city high school with the nick-name "Horror High." Maybe her trip is only across town to explore the ins and outs of running a small independent supermarket in Queens, New York. For our more globe trotting readers she jets off to Cuba to explore baseball, Japan to climb Mt. Fuji, Paris to survey the African music scene and Bhutan to investigate the Kagyupa Buddhism fertility sect along with some childless women who hope to get lucky. Ms. Orlean has an insatiable open curiosity for people and places. What I like about her writing is that she does more reporting then commenting. She lays out the facts and lets the reader draw their own conclusions. This book is a feast for the armchair traveler who may find that they need only get up and go to the window or around the corner to find the interesting and exotic. --L. Hamburg Osen, Diane. The Book That Changed My Life; interviews with National Book Award winners and finalists (2002). 810.9005 In this little gem, introduced by Neil Baldwin (Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, sponsor of the National Book Awards), Osen interviews fifteen of America’s National Book Awards winners and finalists, eliciting the books and authors that most strongly influenced their lives. These erudite interviews are a wonderful testament to the power of reading to inspire. Each author’s list of their own publications is accompanied by a list of the books and authors that inspired them. There is also a discussion guide in the back for book groups. Proceeds from the sale of this book benefit the National Book Foundation. Neil Baldwin writes, "There are enough recommendations of influence in these pages to send you running to a bookstore or the public library, or--most delectably of all--back to a leisurely ramble through your own bookshelves at home, in search of old favorites deserving a new look." --Pat Chupa
We don't usually think of the eastern United States as being prone to earthquakes. But in 1811 an 8+ quake struck New Madrid, Missouri. In January and February of 1812, two more 8+ quakes struck the same area with thousands of other quakes up and down the Richter scale, continuing for about a year. Even though the area was thinly settled at that time, an estimated 1,500 people were killed and the landscape reconfigured. Jake Page is a natural history writer. Charles Officer was a professor in the Earth Sciences department at Dartmouth College and has taught engineering. Together they re-examine the existing records of the New Madrid quake. By accident, a few astute observers were in the area, including the wildlife painter John James Audubon. The authors postulate how these earthquakes helped to develop the science of seismology. Scientists knew little about earthquakes in the early 1800s but began to formulate theories that led to our present day understanding of Earth’s dynamics. Page and Officer also explore the present day state of the field, particularly in regard to prediction. There are so many factors involved in triggering an earthquake that accurate prediction is impossible at this time. But there are some hints as to what path accurate prediction may follow in the future. The authors also briefly examine what it would be like if a similar series of earthquakes were to strike the same area at this time. Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee would be hardest hit and there would be considerable damage in Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Ohio. The property loss and human toll would be horrendous. For the reader who would like to explore a fictional account of what this catastrophe would be like, I suggest Walter Jon Williams’ “The Rift.” --L. Hamburg Palahniuk, Chuck. Fugitives and Refugees; A Walk in Portland, Oregon (2003). 917.9549 This delightful little volume is from the author of Fight Club. It is a memoir and travel guide. Portland is my hometown. If I had to live in an urban area again, I would pick Portland. The city has a weird, charming quirkiness that Palahniuk fully explores in his book. The kind of information that the Chamber of Commerce won’t tell you. Can you really kayak through the storm drains from Eighteenth Avenue to the Willamette River? What’s the story behind the customer who asked to be buried at Powell’s bookstore? Rampaging Santas? Why are there more bizarre private museums per capita than any other city in the United States? There seems to be a good ghost story around every corner. Palahniuk’s personal narrative weaves in and out of this portrait of a city. Some of his anecdotes are so striking that they come to mind a week after the book has been returned to the shelf. --Lew Hamburg Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World (2001). 306.45 What do apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes have in common? All come from plants that humans have domesticated. We have developed and bred these plants, creating strains and hybrids that bring us products that we value. They are also the focus of this fascinating book. In his introduction, Pollan explains that the idea for this book came to him while working in his garden. While sowing seeds near his apple tree, he took note of the bees buzzing around the apple blossoms. The question that came to him at that moment was "What existential difference is there between the human being’s role in this (or any) garden and the bumblebee’s?" What real difference is there between insects carrying pollen that will help a plant reproduce and a person planting seeds that will help a plant reproduce? Did humans really "domesticate" the apple, or did the apple evolve in a way that appeals to our senses, causing us to replicate and disseminate the plant, insuring its survival? With this concept guiding him, Pollan begins a journey of discovery, exploring the coevolution of humans with four plants whose existence and survival is intricately linked with our own. Pollan explains that he chose his subjects as an example of the human desire for a certain quality. The apple represents our desire for sweetness. The tulip demonstrates our search for beauty. The story of the marijuana plant shows our desire for intoxication. The potato, and more specifically, the genetically altered potato, tells the story of our desire for control over the natural world. Each chapter weaves together information from many sources (historical tales, botanical facts, personal observations, etc.), giving us a clearer picture of the human/plant relationship. For example, in Pollan’s first chapter, he explores the world of the apple. Many of us know the basic story of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. Pollan’s quest to understand our relationship with the apple leads him to follow in Chapman’s footsteps. He journeys through the areas where Chapman planted his seeds in order to better understand how human history is intricately linked with the history of the apple. In doing so, he unearths some hidden and unexpected truths. Did you know that each apple seed is genetically programmed to create a completely new and different tree, quite unlike that of its parent? According to Pollan, most apples from trees grown from seed produce poor eating fruit. Thoreau claimed that apples from such trees tended to be so sour as "to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream." (p. 9 ) Thus, to find an edible apple, such as the apples we purchase today in stores or at farm stands, one would need to have a tree produced by grafting. Grafting was already a common practice during Chapman’s time. What does it mean, then, that Johnny Appleseed was dedicated to planting seeds, not carrying grafted trees to all parts of our expanding country? Pollan’s answer to this question is eye opening, offering us an interesting insight into the American past. In fleshing out the story of the apple, Pollan also delves into the history of sugar, the philosophical side of the human desire for "sweetness," and questions of biodiversity. His thoughtful presentation allows the reader to enjoy the surprise and delight that comes from learning something new about a common, and perhaps overlooked, fruit. This is a highly accessible and fascinating read. Pollan is a talented researcher and storyteller. He has skillfully focused on plants that are familiar, insuring that readers will identify with at least one, if not all of the plants. Each chapter is filled with fascinating details and thought provoking insights that give readers a new perspective on our relationship with the plants we grow. The Botany of Desire is a compelling work that has the power to show us our integral role in the botanical life of our planet. --Mari Nowitz Quart, Alissa. Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003). 658.834 Journalist Alissa Quart examines the frenzied consumerism directed at teens in her thought-provoking book, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. Advertisements batter teen brains all day long: on TV, in teen magazines, on the Internet, at school. Ads batter everyone. What’s different about the ads directed at teens? What’s different is, the battle for teen dollars has ratcheted up from fashion spreads in Seventeen and shoe endorsements by athletes. Among the many consumer issues Quart addresses is the recruitment of teens, usually girls, as unpaid product consultants and marketers. Teen magazines such as Teen People and Delia*s invite them to sign up as “trendspotters.” As trendspotters, teens participate in such unpaid work as critiquing magazine text and layout, and sometimes meet with executives from clothing and cosmetics companies, telling them what products will appeal to teens and how better to advertise to them. For although they can be appealed to through canny advertising, teens’ tastes are always just out of reach, sometimes contradictory, and companies need all the insight they can get. For their insights, teen trendspotters are paid in the sponsoring company’s products—and in the attention they receive from hip, successful adults in the worlds of fashion and celebrity that they have been taught to admire. As marketers, teens are encouraged by companies to wear or use their products at their school, as a way of “seeding” interest among peers. Another marketing technique, used by record labels, is to email unpaid teen “street team” members, telling them to generate buzz for particular songs by crowding web sites and phoning or emailing MTV and local radio stations with requests. Still another technique is “cause-based marketing,” in which a company will attempt to appeal to teens’ idealism by associating itself with a good cause, such as Habitat for Humanity or donations to a local school. In case the reader thinks the only types of products teens are being manipulated to buy or try are objects—clothes, cosmetics, music, electronics, fast food, sports gear—think again. The incessant branding of the ideal female and male body in every visual medium correlates with an increase in teen cosmetic surgery, steroid abuse, and pro-anorexia web sites. Not all teens are interested in giving away their expertise, and some view the entire notion of teen pop culture with attitudes ranging from anger to amusement. Quart describes how “unbranded” teens shop at thrift stores, eschew relentlessly marketed music, and boycott the fast food outlets lodged comfortably in their schools. And despite the nonstop ads, the trend spotting, and the marketing, teens are after all human beings with brains. Just as they have intellectual identities larger than that of “student,” so also do they have identities larger than that of “consumer” of marketer-determined collectivist teen pop culture. The seeming contradictions in teen tastes that puzzle marketers are merely signs of something that, happily, continues to flourish: individuality. -- Kristine Mahood Richey, Jim. Finishing : methods of work : the best tips from 25 years of Fine Woodworking magazine (2000). 684.084 WOOD FINISHES 101: Wood finishes 101 is when you slap a coat or two of paint on something and call it good. If that leaves a vague sense of dissatisfaction and you want to explore elementary possibilities of wood finishes, this may be the book for you. Jim Richey edited the Methods of Work column in Fine Woodworking magazine for twenty-five years. He has distilled this combined wisdom down to the best tips. Mr. Richey discusses the basics of surface preparation, minor repairs and troubleshooting finishing problems. He also discusses selecting and applying finishes. Of particular interest in this era of shabby chic and the country look are the chapters on obtaining a crackle finish and making a new paint job look old. The section on nontoxic finishes for children’s toys, bowls and eating utensils is worth the price of the book. The only drawback of the book is the lack of glorious color pictures to illustrate the different finishes. Although the illustrations are very clear and well executed, a sample of end results would have been appreciated. But then the cost of production would have probably doubled the publisher's modest price for this volume. --Lew Hamburg Savage, Dan. Skipping Toward Gomorrah; The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America (2002). 306.0973 Dan Savage is upset that the virtuecrats of our nation go unchallenged. Virtuecrats are those public scolds who lay awake at night, worrying that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. The Borks, Buchanans, Pat Robertsons, Dr. Lauras, and Bill O’Reillys of the world who if not able to put a stop to good times, at least want to make you feel guilty. William J. Bennett was also included in the list, but this was before his gambling habit became public knowledge. Perhaps Mr. Bennett should read Mr. Savage’s chapter on the sin of greed, which he illustrates by an exploration of the gambling industry. Dan Savage is keenly sensitive to hypocrisy and what the bull leaves behind. Liberal, conservative or in the middle, no one is safe from the exposure of his wickedly funny pen. --Lew Hamburg Schott, Ben. Schott’s Original Miscellany (2003). 031.02 The other day my husband and I were discussing religion and could not remember the name of the blue elephant Hindu god. My mother visited us the weekend before Christmas. The conversation turned to the nine Muses and Mom could not remember their names. A friend knitted a beautiful scarf of blue Italian yarn for me. She gave me the yarn label saying she didn’t know if Italian washing symbols were different from U.S. symbols. You may wonder, "What do these things have to do with one another?" Absolutely nothing, except that I found all the information we wanted, and so much more, in Schott’s Original Miscellany. This little book has more esoteric information in it than I thought I would ever need. It is also a great conversation starter. I checked it out before Christmas thinking visiting family might find it interesting. My 17-year-old nephew browsed the pages for about an hour, sharing bits of whimsical information such as how to say I love you in 43 languages and all the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner. In short, if you need to know how to tie a sari or decipher cockney rhyming slang, you’re curious about blood group compatibility or, hey—just what are the rules of dueling?—this is the book for you. You can pick up Mr. Schott’s entertaining little book at your local Timberland library and impress your friends and co-workers with bits of trivia and information they didn’t know they needed. --Patty Wood
Scott-Clark and Levy are investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the London Sunday Times for seven years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. In their spare time, they reeled out "The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade" and now offer us a look at the history of the Amber Room and it's possible fate. A room made entirely of paneled amber was commissioned by Frederick I of Prussia around 1700. Much to my surprise, amber can be heated to between 140 and 200 degrees (any hotter and it catches fire and burns) and molded. Honey, linseed oil or cognac can be added to lend subtle color. The amber pieces were backed with silver or gold foil to reflect candle or sunlight. According to reports, it created an incredibly stunning effect. Before it was finished, it was dismantled by Frederick's heir William I and given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1716. The room was moved around several times, expanding and contracting until it finally settled into it's final form in one of the Tsarskoye Selo palaces of Catherine the Great in the 1770s. The Nazis captured the Amber Room and shipped it to Konigsberg, Prussia. In the chaos at the end of World War II, the Amber Room disappeared. Over the past 60 years hundreds of people and governments have spent millions of dollars searching for the Amber Room. It is a tale of murder, suicide, espionage and counterespionage. Bizarre and eccentric characters abound from "red" countesses to "white" Russian émigré barons. No one is what they seem to be at first glance. Although the former Soviet Union proclaims a new openness, the authors had to peel back layer after layer of bureaucratic subterfuge to even get a glimpse of what may have become of the Amber Room. If you like a good historic mystery with a possible solution or are interested in Eastern European history from the 1700s to the present, this book is well worth reading. The Amber Room was a beautiful thing that rose above the greed, war and totalitarian governments that swirled around it. --L. Hamburg Shea, Suzanne Strempek. Shelf Life; Romance, Mystery, Drama, and other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore (2004). 381.45 Doesn’t it just fry your bacon when someone writes the book that you had intended to write but just never got around too? I spent 17 years managing stores for the big chains, had my own bookstore for awhile and still occasionally drop a little something on e-Bay. Droll stories and anecdotes? I got ‘em. So Ms. Shea waltzes into her neighborhood independent bookstore, fiddles around for a year part-time and viola! A book. Jealous? Who, me? Of course I am! Suzanne Shea is an author who has spent quite a bit of time doing author tours, in and out of hundreds of bookstores. A bout of breast cancer knocked her world out from underneath her. She landed wobbly, but on her feet. Exhausted, depressed and suffering from writers block, she was sort of drafted into working in her neighborhood bookstore. Up the escalator “…into a small, family owned independent bookstore in a half-dark, half-closed urban mall…” Ms. Shea describes a year in the life of the bookstore from holiday display to holiday display. You find out along the way how the book business works and that reports of the demise of the independent bookseller have been greatly exaggerated. But you also learn the importance and impact of books in Ms. Shea’s life and the life of the customers in the bookstore. The author is familiar with the territory of books as a writer and books as a reader but books as a business is uncharted waters that she sails courageously into. This is a thoughtful, well-written and entertaining book. Much to my relief, Ms. Shea didn’t tell ALL the good stories about the book business. She left me a few good ones for my own venture into writing and publishing. --Lew Hamburg
Lets get all romantic and gooey about being a government park ranger. As much as I enjoy Nevada Barr’s mysteries featuring Anna Pigeon as sleuth/park ranger (available through your local Timberland libraries) I always had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps they didn’t entirely portray the realities of a park ranger’s life. To be fair, those mysteries are fiction. Now we have a solid piece of non-fiction to let us in on what being a park ranger is really like. Jordan Fisher Smith has been a park ranger for over twenty years. He has worked in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, the north coast of California and the Alaskan Bush. His longest stint has been working for the California Department of Parks and Recreation patrolling along the American River, 48 miles and 42,000 acres of low-elevation canyons south of the Tahoe National Forest. For over 20 years this stretch of river was slated for dam construction but budget constraints and politics conspired to keep the project in limbo. As the entire area would soon be underwater very little resources were lavished on its maintenance. When Mr. Smith was still a starry-eyed youngster, he discovered that a citation book and a stern lecture had very little impact on the drunken, drugged out or just plain crazy public. After getting several law enforcement courses under his belt, he returned to the realities of being a park ranger. So what are these realities? Mr. Smith perhaps puts it best when he states: “When regular people leave the city limits, their behavior doesn’t change much, and habitual criminals are seldom rehabilitated by pretty scenery.” Small rents must be collected from drug addled squatters in campgrounds, greed crazed gold miners flushed from illegal claims (A bear once did the job for the rangers.) and adrenalin junkies with motorcycles and parachutes kept separated from tall bridges. Joggers are devoured by cougars, abused wives find lonely graves in the wilderness, and a small Buddhist ceremony is conducted for a drowning victim amid orange clouds of migrating lady-bugs. I hope we hear more from Mr. Smith. He writes in a manner that is a nice balance between hardboiled and lyrical. His is a new voice that is comfortable in the company of other nature writers such as Barry Lopez or Edward Abbey—with a dash of Elmore Leonard and Nevada Barr. --L. Hamburg Stille, Alexander. The Future of the Past (2002). 303.4 It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but how is one to learn if the record of that history disappears? In what ways does an historical record shape a culture, and how does the culture itself change as bits and pieces of its history are lost? In this fascinating book, Alexander Stille invites us to explore with him the world’s precarious struggle to preserve and remember history. Mr. Stille, a correspondent for the New Yorker (in which many of these chapters previously appeared), tells us about history in the most interesting way – by introducing us to men and women passionately engaged in the preservation of some of the most "endangered" historical artifacts and sites around the world. We begin in Egypt at the Great Sphinx of Giza with American Egyptologist Mark Lehner and Egyptian archeologist Zahi Hawass. The Sphinx has suffered greater deterioration during the past 50 years than in all its prior existence due to the ever-increasing attentions of archaeologists, tourists, New Age seekers of knowledge and – ironically – preservationists. The Sphinx and the pyramids are considered by Egyptians to be "theirs"; however, the vast majority of visitors to these monuments are Western tourists who think of them as part of world cultural heritage. This has turned Giza into a cultural battlefield where East meets West, where Western dollars and preservation expertise are courted but with acute sensitivity by the Egyptians to protecting national pride. But after 3,500 years of "restorations" of the Sphinx, can it really be said to be authentic? If we restore the past so as to understand and learn from it, how are we to decide which artifacts are "real"? These questions are examined in more detail as Stille takes us to China where an entirely different view of the past has evolved. He describes what he calls the "culture of the copy," in which a high quality reproduction may be valued as much as the original work, in which the skill of the artisan in using ancient techniques becomes a sort of living history. In a land where virtually everything was built of perishable wood, conservation is a simple matter of replacing rotten parts as needed. In China, the "remarkable continuity" of ancient culture kept the same social structure of the imperial system for more than 2,000 years. In such a culture, "rebuilding monuments made perfect sense." However, all of the changes in China during the 20th century have hastened the loss of the knowledge of traditional arts and crafts, and with it the loss of the past. Stille describes a visit to the old and once beautiful city of Xi’an, where historic buildings have been bulldozed and replaced by ugly concrete boxes capped by roofs with upturned Chinese eaves "like ill-fitting wigs or guilty afterthoughts" – thus satisfying an official requirement for traditional architecture. Having introduced us to a different view of historic preservation, Stille continues to stretch our thinking as he takes us to a rain-forest preserve in Madagascar founded by American Patricia Wright. Although ostensibly a great success story demonstrating how protecting the forest can improve the economic viability of local "pilot project" villages, Stille found terrible disease and suffering in an environment of severely limited resources. One village was deemed richer due to the construction of a school, but 11 people there had died of bubonic plague in just two days. Another chapter finds us in India with Veer Bhadra Mishra, a holy man and professor of hydraulic engineering, and we learn of his attempts to use new scientific techniques to save the Ganges from its dreadful pollution and thereby save the ancient rituals based around that holy river. There is a wonderfully engaging portrait of the Rev. Reginald Foster, an American-born Carmelite monk, whose life work was devoted to preserving Latin as a spoken language. And a look at the effect on the culture of Kitawa, a remote island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, when their oral history tradition was replaced by "modern technology" – the ability of anthropologist Giancarlo Scoditti to write down the details of their cultural rituals in his notebook. This tale is immediately contrasted with the struggles of Somalia to develop an alphabet and written language so as to safeguard against the loss of traditions. With an illiteracy rate of 80%, the Somalian people have instead rushed to adopt video- and audio- recorders as their preferred culture-preserving tools. Stille warns against relying too heavily on machines as a way of preserving history. He takes us to the National Archives building outside Washington and introduces us to the Department of Special Media Preservation, a kind of museum of obsolete technology where Archives technicians try to recover information out of modern media which have long since vanished. The National Archives was created in the 1930’s to be our nation’s collective memory. Now, as it "drowns in data and chokes on paper," it is becoming clear that the agency may not be able to preserve what it already has let alone keep up with the explosion of new information. While Alexander Stille does not provide answers to many of the questions surrounding the attempts to preserve history, his thoughtful work will make you ponder on what you have learned from the past. In keeping with the new year, the time to reflect on our past and resolve to improve our future, visit your local Timberland library or bookstore and check out "The Future of the Past." --Bette Anderson Sykes, Bryan. The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001). 599.9352 Are we related to Neanderthal Man, or in other words, is Homo erectus the ancestor of Homo sapiens? This is just one of the amazing questions posed and answered in “The Seven Daughters of Eve” by Brian Sykes. Sykes is a well-known geneticist from Oxford College in England, but you don’t need to be a geneticist or even a scientist to understand this book on mitochondrial DNA. It is, for the most part, written in a style that can be understood by all. (Well, to be truthful, I did skip one or two of the more technical sections, but this is a miniscule part of the work.) The analysis of mitochondrial DNA is our passage to the past in this remarkable work. Mitochondrial DNA is passed on by mothers to both sons and daughters. The daughters then pass it on to their sons and daughters. Men do not pass on mitochondrial DNA for a very simple reason. Mitochondrial DNA is part of what makes up the egg supplied by the female, but not part of the sperm that fertilizes the egg, therefore, all the mitochondrial DNA is passed on from the female. Because of this, mitochondrial DNA is not recombinant and does not change when passed from generation to generation. We should be able to match mitochondrial DNA found in remains from many thousands of years ago to people living in the current era. Another one of the fascinating facts provided in this book relates to hamsters. Did you know that all the hamsters in the world can be traced back to one female and three males found in Syria in the 1930’s? So all hamsters in the world have the same mitochondrial DNA. Using this fact and the reproductive habits of hamsters and applying it on a human scale, the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA was determined to be one mutation every 10,000 years. Using many DNA samples from Europe and the known rate of mutation, Sykes was able to identify seven mitochondrial DNA sequences that are the ‘mothers’ of all Europeans. Based on the mutation rates, they range from 10,000 to 45,000 years into the past. I have heard other readers express an opinion that the author went a little over the top with the section of the book that gives a biographical sketch of each of the seven daughters. Using their geographic locations and the estimated times they lived, he put together a brief account of what their life may have been like. He gave each a Christian name, using the alpha character assigned to identify the genetic sequence as the initial letter of each. I have to admit that I enjoyed this section, but then I have read every one of Jean Auel’s “Earth’s Children” series. “The Seven Daughters of Eve” is a fascinating read and discusses a variety of applications for mitochondrial DNA. It helped to identify the bodies of the last Russian Czar and his family, who were buried in an unmarked grave, and to determine if any of the Princess Anastasia claimants were valid. (Anastasia was the daughter whose body was not found at the grave site). It also discusses whether Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki voyage were correct in assigning America as the origin for the Polynesian people, and it provides interesting insights into how agriculture was introduced into European civilization. I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in genetics or the history of the human species and I believe you will be as engaged as I was by the seven daughters. Are we related to Neanderthal Man? You can find out by checking out the print or audiocassette version of the book at your local library. --Heather King
This book would appeal to anyone interested in military history, airpower or great disasters. In a 24-hour period beginning on the night of February 13, 1945, 1,100 allied bombers dropped more than 4,500 tons of bombs and incendiary devices on the city of Dresden. A firestorm developed and many people were killed. Beyond that there has been a great deal of myth and misinformation. The myths of Dresden came about because of the last gasp of Nazi propaganda and the disappearance of the city behind the Iron Curtain less than three months after the end of World War II. Frederick Taylor studied history and modern languages at Oxford University. After hundreds of interviews and examination of thousands of documents in British, American and German archives he presents a new look at the destruction of Dresden. These archives include many previously inaccessible documents newly available after years of communist censorship. One of the controversial topics that Taylor examines is how many people really died in Dresden. He also looks into the claims that allied pilots chased down and strafed civilians as they fled toward safety. Most of all he researches the actual role of Dresden in the Third Reich. Often viewed as a city with no military importance whose only industry was porcelain manufacture, Taylor reveals that actually it was "… a city of considerable military importance, both as a transportation hub and a major producer of armaments and military provisions." Mr. Taylor provides a rich background history of the city and the history of the rise of military airpower. These two forces converged in 1945 to destroy a truly beautiful city that had been known as "the Florence of the Elbe."
Imagine a place that has been constantly inhabited for 400,000 years. Such a place exists and Harry Thurston takes us there. Mr. Thurston is a journalist on science and environmental issues who has written twelve books and numerous articles for such magazines as National Geographic and Audubon magazines. He takes us to the Dakhleh Oasis, which is out in the Sahara Desert west of the Nile Valley in Egypt. Water has poured out of the ground there for…well, forever. The Nile Valley is so over-run with archaeologists that the Egyptian Antiquities Organization grants dig permits in feet and yards. In 1977 a permit was granted to Geoffrey Freeman, a businessman and amateur, and Tony Mills, an experienced field archaeologist, to dig the entire oasis. They had the run of an 800 square mile area that contained over 700 sites covering the whole of human history. They decided to form the Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP). The goal was to study the whole oasis in an effort to trace its entire cultural history and to enlist the aid of not only archaeologists but also geologists, paleontologists and botanists. "Determining how the environment had shaped human activities and how humans had altered the environment would become the central mission of the project." Harry Thurston believes that "…Dakhleh's story is about water, its exploitation and conservation. Following the water, its rise and fall, we can trace the fate of humans not only in the Western Desert, but by implication anywhere on the planet." Dakheleh is a microcosm of civilization: From the ruins of Old and New Kingdom Egyptians to Roman cities and farmsteads; from early Christian communities to the triumph of Islam. And all in remarkable states of preservation. You may have seen bits and pieces of the Dakheleh Oasis story here and there. Articles about golden mummies or the discovery of the oldest book in the world. The full story is in this book, all pulled together by the thin threads of water that nourish this parched part of the world.
I'm a fairly "with it" kind of guy when it comes to the history of literature. For an autodidactic whose motto is: "I read as I breathe." I've always been fascinated by how creative people influence each other. That cross pollination of creativity. Therefore, I was very pleased (and a little embarrassed) to discover Sherill Tippins’ book about an intentional community of artists and writers that I had never heard of before. Sherill Tippins was an associate producer for a PBS affiliate when she stumbled across this interesting story. In 1940 New York City, George Davis was the editor at Harper's Bazaar that every one wanted to write for. He was fired. Then he had a dream. A house where he could live with all his closest friends. Enough friends so that he could live rent free in the style to which he had become accustomed. Mr. Davis actually found the house of his dream in Brooklyn overlooking New York harbor. In moved Wystan Auden, the famous English poet to become the "peevish auntie, collecting rent money and dispensing romantic advice." Carson McCuller wrote "The Member of the Wedding" while in residence and began "The Ballad of the Sad Café." The composer Benjamin Britten and his lover Peter Pears moved in for the cheap rent and so that Auden and Britten could co-create their opera "Paul Bunyan." Jane ("Two Serious Ladies") and Paul Bowles ("Sheltering Sky") were evicted due to their high jinx. Oh, and the famous exotic dancer Gypsy Rose Lee wrote her popular (and highly acclaimed) mystery, "The G-String Murders." Gypsy and Carson shared the third floor. Other literary and artistic types passed through the house, refugees from Hitler. Thomas Mann's ("Death in Venice") children Erika and Klaus were frequent guests. Salvador and Gala Dali stayed awhile. Kurt Weill ("Threepenny Opera") and his wife the singer Lotte Lenya were there. Overall, a fascinating milieu. And I must thank Ms. Tippins for bringing this fascinating chapter in creative history to my attention. --L. Hamburg
Every once in a while, an unlikely title shows up on the bestseller list. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss showed up on the list in April 2004 and, as of this writing, has stayed there for 26 weeks. Why would a book about punctuation – commas, apostrophes, dashes, italics, question marks, hyphens, colons, and semi-colons – be that popular? This little book is delightful, that’s why! The author investigates the common usage of written English and makes the case that how we punctuate helps us communicate accurately; that our well-honed system of writing conventions gives meaning to what we say and helps us to think more clearly. Based on British journalist Truss’ series of radio programs on the BBC about punctuation, “Cutting a Dash,” the book title is based on a joke in which a panda goes into a bar and asks for a ham sandwich. The panda eats the sandwich, then takes out a revolver and fires it into the air. When the bartender wants to know why the Panda shot the gun, the bear throws a book on the bar and says, “Here’s a badly punctuated wildlife manual. Look me up!” The bartender reads: “PANDA: large black-and-white, bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.” This parable is a powerful one, demonstrating that mis-punctuation is not only irritating, it can lead to erroneous assumptions: to think that the lovely, solitary Panda bear, calmly chewing on plant roots and leaves could be typified as a gun-toting gangster bear is amusing as well as abhorrent! Truss’ witty and humorous style is the best kind of text: it teaches by entertaining, without sounding tiresome or even especially pedantic. Not that the author isn’t aggressive when it comes to putting things right in punctuation land. In her introduction to the American edition of the book, the author states, “I don’t know how bad things are in America, but in the UK I cannot emphasize it enough: standards of punctuation are abysmal. Encouraged to conduct easy tests on television, I discovered to my horror that most British people truly do not know their apostrophe from their elbow…Caring about matters of language is unfortunately generally associated with small-minded people, but that doesn’t make it a small issue. The disappearance of punctuation…indicates an enormous shift in our attitude to the written word.” Throughout the book, Truss gives humorous and offbeat examples of why punctuation can completely change the meaning of a statement. She skillfully demonstrates correct usage. One of my favorite examples is in the chapter headed “That’ll ’Do, Comma”. Note the difference in meaning that the placement of the comma makes in this sentence:
For those of you who may underestimate the power of punctuation, please note the statement of homage on the dedication page of Eats, Shoots and Leaves:
Check this book out at your local Timberland Regional Library (call number 428.2.TRUSS.2004) or listen to the radio series that inspired the book. on the audio disc titled Cutting a Dash (call numberTB-CD.428.2.TRUSS.2004). --J. Barnett Van Pelt, Elizabeth Cohen. The House on Beartown Road: A Memoir of Learning and Forgetting (2003). 362.1968 They've been called "the sandwich generation": baby boomers who are raising children while simultaneously caring for elderly parents. Sandwiched evenly between her infant daughter and 80-year-old father, Beth Cohen could be the poster child for this generation. In The House on Beartown Road, she describes a winter the three of them spent in an isolated New York farmhouse, thousands of miles from their closest relatives. Cohen's mother had ignored Daddy's early signs of Alzheimer's. Finally, when she could no longer cope with his memory lapses, she asked Cohen and her husband, Shane, to take him in. Shortly after Daddy moved in, Shane moved out. Alone with her father and daughter, Cohen had a rare opportunity to observe both ends of the chronological spectrum up close. While Ava was soaking up new words and experiences like a sponge, Daddy was gradually losing his store of memories. In between, Cohen found that she was equally capable of learning and forgetting. A newspaper reporter, she began writing about her experiences in a regular column; she also kept a diary. With her keen eye and self-deprecating wit, she manages to infuse even the most dismal circumstances with poignancy, humor or, quite frequently, both. She delights in her father's lyrical phrasing when he begins to grasp for simple words. Ice is "the clear and white stuff that encrusted on the tip of the stairs. "Apples are "the crackly, magnificent, sweet ones." Meanwhile Ava's vocabulary is quickly growing, and Cohen sees a tangible link between the two phenomena. She writes that her father is "dropping pieces of language behind him, the baby following, picking them up." Ava and her "Pop-pop" have reached the same intellectual level, leaving Cohen as the only true adult in the house. Caring for both of them has become the focal point of her life, and sometimes she feels that she can barely cope. When it becomes clear that Daddy cannot be left alone, he begins attending an adult day care program. He taught economics before his retirement, and he now believes that he is the teacher at the facility where he goes each day. At various times, other family members take Daddy in, but never for very long. Cohen's sister sends him back after a few months, explaining that she's having a breakdown. "I want to have a breakdown, too," Cohen writes. "But someone has to take care of Daddy. Besides, I don't really know how to go about it; the only thing I have ever broken down is cardboard boxes." Resigned to being Daddy's primary caregiver, Cohen tries to learn as much as she can about Alzheimer's disease. She even takes a self-assessment test to determine if she is developing the condition herself. The test results are somewhat encouraging. "So far I have not worn my bathrobe to the park," she writes. "I do not even know where my bathrobe is anymore." At times she thinks that her father's condition is improving, but then he will say or do something that reveals he is still firmly in the clutches of the disease. To try to slow its progress, Cohen asks him to tell her his memories. She soon has filled a notebook with a small number of memories, retold with many variations. Despite her loneliness and frustration, Cohen eventually realizes that the three of them are truly a family. With the help of neighbors and friends, and with encouragement from sympathetic readers of her newspaper column, the family on Beartown Road makes it through the long, harsh winter. Cohen's overwhelming love for her father and daughter shines through on every page of this memoir, making it one the reader won't soon forget. –S.M. Colowick Walters, Mark Jerome. Six Modern Plagues and how we are causing them (2003). 614.4 Outbreaks of new diseases, such HIV/AIDs, Hantavirus, Lyme disease , Nile Virus, Salmonella (a deadly strain) and most recently Mad Cow disease are front page news around the world. What is not emerging from these stories is what these outbreaks have in common. The media has yet to connect the dots between the outbreaks and the underlying environmental changes behind the emergence of these diseases. Mark Jerome Walters, trained in journalism and veterinary medicine has written a compelling argument for this in his book “Six Modern Plagues and how we are causing them.” Walters argues that ”so closely are new epidemics linked to ecological change that they might rightfully be called ecodemics.” In fact these diseases may not really be new, but have been less virulent due to environmental conditions. Global climate changes, industrialized agriculture, deforestation, wildlife decimation and over-population have altered the ecological balance. Add to this mix global travel and commerce and you open up opportunities for diseases to spread rapidly. In six chapters Walters describes each disease from the point of view of someone who has contracted the disease. He describes the conditions of the environment in which they caught the disease, the effects of the disease and the efforts to save the patient. Point by point he builds his case for “Ecodemics.” In the chapter on Mad Cow Disease, Walter explains that cows, sheep and other herbivores have evolved over eons to eat plants. Their teeth are designed to chew plants and their stomachs are designed to digest plants. But agri-business in an effort to streamline and save money began something called “rendering.” Rendering is animal blood and guts turned into feed for livestock. Meat producers began this practice in the mid-twentieth century, completely oblivious of the consequences. Routinely animals fed this product began to have digestive problems. But by the time this occurred, these cows were headed for slaughter. But now a business decision that was once just repugnant morally has also turned out to be bad for own health. Mad Cow disease is now linked to the human form of the disease. The actual origin of mad cow disease is unknown, but intensive factory farming has increased the opportunities for such agents to spread through the food web. Most people became aware of AIDS when doctors discovered clusters of illnesses among homosexual men in the Los Angeles area in the late nineteen-seventies. Now we all know about the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDSs in the continent of Africa. What brought about this virus? Is it new? Has it always been around? For his book Walters interviews medical researcher Beatrice Hahn. According to Hahn, understanding the origins of AIDS/HIV could possibly lead us to controlling the disease. HIV is a family of viruses. These viruses are found in chimpanzees, who are apparently unimpaired by carrying this disease. But as development and deforestation came to Africa, workers began to utilize bush meat and also capture chimpanzees and monkeys to resell. Walters describes seeing Bush people carrying sacks of dead simians out of the forest, their arms covered with scratches from struggling with these animals. As a consequence they were exposed to these viruses. Again changes in the environment allowed the virus to not only jump species but spread rapidly through the population. This has caused scientists to wonder what other unknown viruses are waiting to jump species. Unfortunately simians are now being hunting into extinction in Africa, the one animal that scientists believe have some innate immunity to the virus and could help researchers find a cure. Meticulously, chapter by chapter, Walters builds his case for the environmental disaster awaiting humanity. Yet he ends on an up note, making the point that mankind can now recognize this pattern and make changes to avert disaster. Walter’s book (and argument is compelling…..and scary. Addendum: Just as I was finishing this review I read that scientists are now looking at a connection between Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, (the disease associated with Mad Cow disease) and Alzheimer’s. “Over the last 20 years the rates of Alzheimer's disease in the United States have skyrocketed. According to the CDC, Alzheimer's Disease is now the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, afflicting an estimated 4 million Americans” The plot thickens. --Carrie Dye
The garden is almost put to bed and for the gardener those long bleak empty days stretch ahead until the arrival of the first seed catalog. Here’s a little something to get you through that doesn’t involve prescriptions from you doctor or intensive psychotherapy. Laughter, either at yourself or at others, is the best medicine as long as you’re not too obvious about it. Art Wolk is a librarian back in New Jersey though in real life he’s a gardener. He’s an award-winning writer, lecturer, photographer and Grand Sweepstakes winner at the Philadelphia Flower Show. He’s written articles for Fine Gardening and Better Homes and Gardens magazines. He received the Quill and Trowel Award from the Garden Writers Association. The guy is a serious gardener…when he isn’t struck by a fit of giggles over his own or other gardeners’ antics. Mr. Wolk discusses such gardening maladies as zonal denial (gardeners who are delusional and think that semi-tropical plants can survive in places like North Dakota), hortiholics (Gardening influences every facet of their lives. At its worst, plants are hidden from family members.) and non-gardening gardeners (They pay ghost growers to take care of their plants so they can enter them in flower shows to win prizes and prestige). He also explores the ongoing misunderstandings or outright war between gardeners and non-gardeners. Where a gardener sees leaves as fodder for compost, the non-gardener sees a wasted weekend. A gardener sees hanging plants as cuttings waiting to be plucked; a non-gardener sees décor. Harmless (mostly) manias are always fun to explore, whether those in ourselves or in others. I’m sure Mr. Wolk would completely understand the time I let my grass get three feet high, liberally sprinkled with violets. When my more buttoned-down neighbors began to complain, I passed it off as the latest thing, a prairie lawn. And I nearly got away with it. Zhi, Lu. Giant Pandas in the Wild: saving an endangered species (2002). 599.789 For anyone interested in animals, conservation and/or China this book is a resounding delight. Just looking at the many splendid, full-color photographs inspires and informs, for the pictures not only show numerous wild pandas engaged in the full range of life activities, but also give insight into the personal challenges facing research scientists and conservationists in developing countries. The researchers’ hut shown in one photo is exemplary in its bare, utilitarian simplicity. The accompanying text contributes equally to the book’s impact on the reader. Historical background on the beginnings of panda research is provided by George Schaller and others. Lu Zhi, the primary author, writes clearly and vividly of her graduate level field research on pandas in the late 1980s to mid-90s. Wanting to have a more immediate influence on the fate of the animals, she then took on the job of coordinating panda conservation efforts for the World Wildlife Fund in China, and tells of progress made. A country the size of China, with its huge population, faces infinite demands on limited resources. Panda habitat shrinks as people seek arable land, lumber and firewood. Pandas themselves provide income as pelts. Government funds for supporting research, and creating, maintaining and protecting preserves are scarce. Lu Zhi and her colleagues are maximizing these funds through local involvement, education and careful implementation of ecotourism. Besides delight this book gives one hope. --Kristin Blalack Revised 09/14/09 For Information or to Ask a Reference Question:
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