| Volume 1 |
March 2006 |
Issue 8 |
New Books
| Coming Soon | Obituaries
Book 'em looks at selected books that are on, or have
recently been, on the New Book display, as well as other news in the
world of books. A complete list of books (and other materials)
cataloged in the past month may be found at http://hiraml.hiram.edu/ftlist.
Book 'em is published monthly from August through May. Please
direct any comments to the editor, David Everett.
New Books
Fiction
Amy Tan is back with a novel about 12
American tourists traveling in contemporary China and Burma in Saving
Fish From Drowning (New York:
Putnam, 2005 - call
number F T1532s).
The Lighthouse
(New York: Knopf, 2005 - call
number F J2357l) is the latest Adam Dalgliesh mystery by famed
British mystery writer P. D. James. (Note: check out Wil Hoffman's
full review on the Friends of the Library Mystery Review page at http://library.hiram.edu/folmystery.html.)
And if mysteries are your
thing, you may also want to checkout The
Best American Mystery Stories 2005
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005 - call
number F B4643 2005), edited by Joyce Carol Oates, which brings
together previously (mostly in 2004) published mystery stories from a
variety of sources.
If you are a short story fan, you should check out these two new
collections. The Turning: New
Stories (New York: Scribner, 2004 -
call
number F W738t) is the latest collection of short stories from
Australian Tim Winton, who is probably better known for novels such as Dirt
Music. T. Coraghessan Boyle, who has won a number of O.
Henry awards for his short stories, has collected a number of his recent
stories in Tooth and Claw
(New York: Viking, 2005 - call
number F B6978t).
Non-Fiction
It's a little hard to classify historian Gerard J. DeGroot's The
Bomb: A Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005 -
call
number 623.4511909 Deg). We'll call it History of Science
for a book that can best be described as a biography of the
atomic/nuclear bomb from birth to the present.
Also in the History of Science category are three books that look
at diseases. Polio: An American
Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 - call
number 614.5490973 Osh) is historian David M. Oshinisky's look at
the polio fears of the 1950s, the campaign to find a cure (including the
March of Dimes campaign many of us remember), and the discovery of the
Salk and Sabin vaccines. Twenty-First
Century Plague: The Story of SARS (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2005 - call
number 614.592 Abr) is journalist Thomas Abraham's account of the
emergence of SARS and the race to stop it. The subtitle pretty
much describes The Great Plague: The Story of
London's Most Deadly Year (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2004 - call
number 362.1969232 Moo) by A. Lloyd Moote and Dorothy C. Moote,
emeritus professor of history and medical research specialist,
respectivley.
If the above titles don't have you worried, you might want to also check
out Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food
Fears (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006 - call
number 616.3900944 Fer) by social historian Madeleine Ferrieres.
In the book, an English translation of a work originally published in
2002, Ferrieres looks at our current behavior toward food as she
examines food panics, myths, and changing attitudes through history from
medieval Europe to the present world.
American history is represented in two new books. In Fries's
Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004 - call
number 973.44 New), historian Paul Douglas Newman looks at the last
of three popular rebellions (following Shays's Rebellion and the Whiskey
Rebellion) in the early American republic, this one taking place in
1798. Sisters: The Lives of America's
Suffragists (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005 - call
number 324.6230922 Bak) by historian Jean H. Baker recounts the
public and private lives of Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Frances Willard, and Alice Paul.
British history is not forgotten this month as evidenced by The
King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005 - call
number 274.206 Hen-B), in which historian G. W. Bernard provides a
detailed look at the reformation of the English Church and argues that
Henry VIII was the prime mover behind that reformation.
Those interested in recent Chinese history should take a look at
Fan Shen's Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004 - call
number 951.056 She), which tells the story of one young man's coming
of age during the Cultural Revolution. The author became a Red
Guard in 1966 at age 12 and ultimately left China in 1985 to attend
graduate school in the United States.
For those interested in political science there are two new
books. Law professor John Yoo offers a new approach to
understanding the Constitution and the President's power to conduct
foreign affairs - a topic of particular importance given the American
involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan - in The
Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005 - call
number 343.7301 Yoo). Politics, public policy, and education
come together in The Birth of Head Start:
Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005 - call
number 372.210973 Vin), in which historian Maris A. Vinovskis looks
at the beginnings of Head Start, arguably the best known early education
program. Head Start, begun as part of Lyndon Johnson's "Great
Society," the program has now passed its 40th birthday.
There are two new books that may interest sports fans. In America's
Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation
(New York: Random, 2004 - call
number 796.3326409 Mac, Michael MacCambridge tells the history of
pro football and how it came to replace baseball as the preeminent pro
sport in the United States. Baseball fans can celebrate two
volumes of the Cooperstown Symposium on
Baseball and American Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003
- call
number 796.3570973 Coo 2002 and call
number 796.3570973 Coo 2003/04) that collect the papers presented at
these meetings of an annual conference.
Peter A. Verkruyse's Prophet, Pastor, and
Patriarch: The Rhetorical Leadership of Alexander Campbell
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005 - call
number 286.6 Cam-V) is a rhetorical study of Campbell's sermons,
lectures, debates, and other writings.
Coming Soon (the following
books are on order or in process)
The subtitle pretty much covers it in Jacob Soll's Publishing the
Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism.
James Grant's John Adams: Party of One is the latest biography of
the Founding Father and second president whose reputation has been
enjoying a revival.
The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian
War by Fred Anderson is the companion book to the PBS documentary of
the same name that aired earlier.
Robert Herzstein's Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American
Crusade in Asia looks at the role of Henry Luce (Time, Fortune,
Life and later Sports Illustrated) and his major
publication played in American actions in China.
In The Constitution in War Time: Beyond Alarmism and Complacency,
editor Mark Tushnet brings together essays looking at questions related
to civil liberties in light of the war on terrorism.
Obituaries
Peter Benchley on February 12 at age 65. Benchley, a
prolific writers of best-selling thrillers, is probably best known for
his first novel, Jaws. Benchley frequently used the ocean
in his novels, as evidenced by such works as The
Island and The
Deep. Benchley was the son of novelist Nathaniel Benchley and
the grandson of humorist and editor Robert Benchley.
Barbara Guest on February 15 at age 85. A poet, Guest was the only
female member of the New York School of poets in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. Her poems were published in a number of collections,
including Miniatures
and Other Poems.
Frederick Busch on February 23 at age 64. Best known for his
short stories (such as those collected in Don't
Tell Anyone), Busch also wrote a number of well-received novels,
such as A
Memory of War. Busch taught literature at Colgate University from
1976 until his retirement in 2003. At Colgate, Busch was known for
his "Living Writers" course that every week brought a
different author into the class.
Octavia Butler on February 24 at age 58. An award winning
science fiction writer (two Hugo awards and two Nebulas), Butler may be
best known for Kindred.
She just recently published The
Fledgling.
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