| Volume 1 |
April 2006 |
Issue 9 |
New Books
| Coming Soon | Obituaries
| Awards
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
Beasts of No Nation: A Novel
(New York: HarperCollins, 2005 - call
number F Iw1b), author Uzodinma Iweala's debut novel, tells the
story of a child soldier in a civil war in an unnamed West African
country.
Non-Fiction
Autobiographies lead off the non-fiction section this
month. Award-winning historian John Hope Franklin tells his own
life's story in Mirror to America: The
Autobiography of John Hope Franklin (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2005 - call
number 973.0496 Fra 2005). Gordon Parks (photographer,
filmmaker, composer, and author) died on March 7 at age 93. A
Hungry Heart (New York: Atria Books, 2005 - call
number 770.92 Par 2005) is his memoir. It follows an earlier
autobiography, A Choice of Weapons
(St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986 - call
number 770.92 1986). This edition, also recently added to our
collection, is a reprint of the original 1966 book.
Two new titles look at the history of race relations in
Ohio. Darrel E. Bigham's On
Jordan's Banks: Emancipation and Its Aftermath in the Ohio River Valley
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2006 - call
number 977.00496 Big) looks at the idea of equality by studying
African-American life on both sides of the Ohio River after
emancipation. In The Black Laws: Race
and the Legal Process in Early Ohio (Athens, OH: Ohio
University Press, 2005 - call
number 342.730873 Mid), Stephen Middleton (constitutional history at
North Carolina State University) looks at Ohio as the legal battleground
between the use of state power for racial discrimination and hte desire
of African-Americans and their white supporters for
equality.
Music is also represented this month. Mark N. Grant
argues that today's musicals, while commercial successes, do not measure
up to musicals of what calls the "golden age" of musicals
(1927-1966) in The Rise and Fall of the
Broadway Musical (Boston: Northeastern University Press,
2004 - call
number 782.1409747 Gra). In Pioneers
of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005 - call
number 781.650922 Gus) Lawrence Gushee tells the story of the Creole
Band whose touring of vaudeville stages from 1914 to 1918 brought New
Orleans jazz to the rest of America.
Three new books look at current world events.
Mary Habeck looks at the ideology behind Jihadist groups like al-Qaida
and how the United States can combat that ideology in Knowing
the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006 - call
number 287.272 Hab). Editors Brendon O'Connor and Martin
Griffiths collect 12 essays on anti-Americanism around the world in The
Rise of Anti-Americanism (New York: Routledge, 2006 - call
number 327.7300905 Ris). Especially topical is War
Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict
(New York: Grove, 2006 - call
number 341.6 Bye) by Michael Byers, which is a history of
international law as it applies to armed conflict. The book was
originally published in Great Britain in 2005.
The United States and Asia is the topic of two new
books. The Cambodian Campaign: The
1970 Offensive and America's Vietnam War (Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, 2005 - call
number 959.704342 Sha 2005) by John M. Shaw looks at the expansion
of the Vietnam War into a neutral Cambodia. While the invasion led
to massive antiwar protests in the United States, it was, according to
Shaw, a military success. In Henry R.
Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005 - call
number 070.5092 Luc-H) Robert E. Herzstein examines the role of
publisher Henry Luce (an ardent anti-Communist who had been born in
China and believed the United States had "lost" China) and his
publishing empire, headed by Time magazine, in American foreign
policy in the Orient.
United States history continues with two very different
books. In The Cold War: A New History
(New York: Penguin, 2005 - call
number 909.825 Gad), John Lewis Gaddis, probably the preeminent
historian in the field, provides an overview of the Cold War from
beginning to end. Gaddis, Professor of History at Yale University,
has been writing on the Cold War for 25 years - or since the editor of
this newsletter was an undergraduate who used Gaddis's The
United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 in his
history senior seminar paper. Women's
Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present
(New York: Dial Press, 2005 - call
number 305.40973 Wom 2005), edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J.
Adler, looks at U.S. history by presenting in chronological order more
than 400 letters written by women. Topics range from everyday life
to important events in American history, while writers range from the
famous (Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, Jackie Kennedy) to the infamous (the
letter from Jean Harris to her lover Herman Tarnower two days before she
murdered him) to the unknown (a New York City schoolgirl's letter to
members of the FDNY after 9/11).
Two books look at topics in the history of science.
In The History of the Laser
(Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics Publishing, 2005 - call
number 621.366 Ber) Mario Betolotti recounts the history and the use
of the laser from its invention in 1960 to the present. Historian
Kim Coleman looks at the use of chemicals in warfare, primarily in the
twentieth-century in A History of Chemical
Warfare (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 - call
number 358.3409 Col).
Those interested in U.S. government should check out
political scientist Andrew Rudalevige's look at the re-growth of
presidential power and the erosion of constraints initiated by Congress
after Watergate in The New Imperial
Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power After Watergate
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005 - call
number 973.92 Rud). The title, of course, is taken from Arthur
M. Schlessinger, Jr.'s book The
Imperial Presidency (published, ironically, at the height of
Watergate), which look at the growth in presidential power.
Juvenile
Your Eyes in Starts
(New York: HarperCollins, 2006 - call
number JF K464y) is the latest from award-winning M. E. Kerr (Snakes
Don't Miss Their Mothers, Slap
Your Sides). The novel, told from the point of view of the
teen characters (primarily Jessie, the daughter of the prison warden),
is set in upstate New York during the Depression and World War II.
The 2006 Newbery Medal winner, Lynne Rae Perkin's Criss
Cross (New York: Greenwillow books, 2005 - call
number JF P4196c) is the story of four 14-year olds in a small town,
each of whom is at a crossroads in his or her young life.
Alphabet books have been around for a long, long time. Two new
ones focus on specific professions. Steven L. Layne and Deborah
Dover Layne use teachers and schools for the alphabet in T
is for Teachers: A School Alphabet (Chelsea, MN: Sleeping
Bear Press, 2005 - call
number J 371 Lay), while Marie Smith and Roland Smith use a zoo
setting in Z is for Zookeeper: A Zoo
Alphabet (Chelsea, MN: Sleeping Bear Press, 2005 - call
number J 590.73 Smi). Both use short rhymes for letters (for
example, "N is for Nursery where zoo babies stay. Zookeepers
take care of them all night and all day.", while providing three or
four paragraphs of additional information for older readers. Both
books include wonderful illustrations.
Coming Soon (the following
books are on order or in process)
Melvin Gurtov's Superpower on Crusade: The Bush Doctrine in U.S.
Foreign Policy analyzes the current President Bush's foreign
policy.
From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China
is Merle Goldman's examination of the post-Mao era.
Leslie Savan looks at the growth of what she calls "pop
language" in Slam Dunks and No Brainers: Language in Your Life,
the Media, Business, Politics, and Like, Whatever.
The subtitle pretty much says it all in Ethan Mordden's Sing for Your
Supper: The Broadway Musical in the 1930s.
Dorothy Ko re-examines the Chinese tradition of footbinding in Cinderella's
Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding.
Obituaries
John Reynolds Gardiner on March 4 at age 61. Gardiner, an
author of children's books, is probably best known for Stone
Fox, which in 1987 became a television movie starring Buddy
Ebsen.
Stanislaw Lem on March 27 at age 84. A science fiction
writer who wrote in his native Polish, Lem is best known for Solaris,
published in 1961, but not translated into English until 1970. Solaris
was made into two films, the first in 1972 and the second, which starred
George Clooney, thirty years later in 2002.
Henry Farrell on March 29 at age 85. Farrell was best known
for his novel Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? that became an
award winning movie starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
Farrell also wrote a short story was the basis for the movie "Hush
Hush, Sweet Charlotte."
John McGahern on March 30 at age 71. McGahern was known for
his works about his native Ireland. His second novel, The Dark,
was banned in Ireland.
Muriel Spark on April 14 at age 88. Spark, whose work often
used religious themes, is best known for her novel The
Prime of Miss Jean Bodie. She also wrote an autobiography,
Curriculum
Vitae.
Awards
Columbia University announced the winners of the 2006 Pulitzer Prizes
in letters and music. The winners, announced on Monday, April 17,
will recieve a $10,000 award and will be honored in a ceremony at
Columbia on May 22. The winners are:
Fiction - Geraldine Brooks, March
(New York: Viking, 2005) (check
the status of the library's copy)
History - David M. Oshinsky, Polio:
An American Story (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005) (check
the status of the library's copy)
Biography - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin,
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy
of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Knopf, 2005) (check
the status of the library's copy)
Poetry - Claudia Emerson, Late
Wife (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,
2005)
General Nonfiction - Caroline Elkins, Imperial
Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
(New York: Henry Holt, 2005) (check
the status of the library's copy)
Music - Yehudi Wyner, Piano Concerto:
"Chiavi in Mano"
Drama - no award given
Special Citation - Edmund S. Morgan
"for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American
historian." (check
the status of the library's books by Edmund S. Morgan)
For more information, see the Pulitzer Prize web site at http://www.pulitzer.org/
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