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Volume 2 |
May 2007 |
Issue 10 |
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 and is distributed to
"subscribers" by email notification. If you would like to
become a subscriber or just make a comment, email the editor, David
Everett at everettdd@hiram.edu.
Welcome to the final Book 'em of this academic year. We have
some new fiction for summer reading - more than is highlighted
below. And there are more than a half-dozen gardening books
for those with a green thumb. So check it out and we'll see
you in the fall!
Fiction
Carolly Erickson's
The Last Wife of Henry VIII (New York: St. Martin's,
2006 -
call number F Er4421) is a historical novel of the life of
Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.
Ten Days in the Hills (New York:
Knopf, 2007 -
call number F Sm44t 2007), the latest from Pulitzer Prize winner
Jane Smiley, is set in Hollywood Hills.
Michael Wallner's April in Paris
(New York: Nan A. Talese, 2007 -
call number F W1589a) is a love story between a Gestapo
interpreter and a French woman, neither of whom knows the other's
real identity, set in Nazi-occupied Paris.
Continuing the Nazi theme is Norman Mailer's
The Castle in the Forest (New York: Random House, 2007
-
call number F M2819c), in which Mailer explores the evil of
Adolph Hitler, as narrated by a mysterious member of the SS.
Non-Fiction
Presidential rhetoric is a hot topic this month, with four
new books on that general topic. In
President's Speeches: Beyond "Going Public" (Boulder, CO:
Rienner, 2006 -
call number 352.2380973 Esh) Matthew Eshbaugh-Suhs (political
science, University of North Texas) argues that Presidents use
policy speeches to give the public and Congress cues on what the
President wants. Who Belongs in
America?: Presidents, Rhetoric, and Immigration (College
Stations, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2006 -
call number 325.73 Who), edited by Vanessa B. Beasley, is a
collection of essays analyzing Presidential rhetoric on immigration
throughout U.S. history. In The Moral
Rhetoric of American Presidents (College Station, TX:
Texas University Press, 2006 -
call number 352.238014 Sho), Colleen J. Shogan (government,
George Mason University) argues that presidential moral rhetoric is
as much a political tool as a reflection of the president's values.
State of the Union: Presidential Rhetoric
from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush (Washington, DC: CQ
Press, 2007 -
call number 352.2380973 Sta), edited by Deborah Kalb, Gerhard
Peters, and John T. Woolley, gathers the text of every State of the
Union speech from Woodrow Wilson through George W. Bush's 2006
speech.
Two more new books continue the political theme.
Kirsten A. Foot and Steven M. Schneider analyze the use of the Web
in U.S. political campaigns, while also looking to future uses in
Web Campaigning (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2006 -
call number 324.70285 Foo). Richard R. Lau and David P.
Redlawsk look at how people process information about candidates in
order to make a decision on whom to vote for in
How Voters Decide: Information Processing
during Election Campaigns (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2006 -
call number 324.973 Lau).
Biography is surprisingly light this month. Susan
Elizabeth Hough's Richter's Scale: Measure
of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2007 -
call number 551.22092 Ric-H) is a biography of the Ohio born man
who developed the scale used to measure earthquakes.
Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L.
Travers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006 -
call number 823.912 Tra-L), by Valerie Lawson, is a biography of
the Australian who created Mary Poppins and clashed with Walt Disney
over the movie version that made Poppins - and Travers - world
famous.
Two more biographies headline four new books on rock and roll.
Gayle F. Wald's Shout, Sister, Shout: The
Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharp
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2007 -
call number 782.254092 Tha-W) is a biography of the guitar
playing Tharpe, seldom remembered today, despite her influence on
such popular artists as Little Richard and Elvis. She may be
seldom remembered but you can hear some of her work in our
CD
collection. In Lonely Avenue: The
Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus (New York: Da Capo,
2007 -
call
number 782.4216409 Pom-H), Alex Halberstadt looks at the life of
Jerome Felder, better known as Doc Pomus, who, alone or with
songwriting partner Mort Shuman, wrote such classic songs as "Save
the Last Dance for Me," "This Magic Moment," "Suspicion," "Viva Las
Vegas," and a host of other classic early rock-and-roll tunes.
Peter Ames Carlin's Catch a Wave: The Rise,
Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
(Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006 -
call
number 782.421669 Wil-C) is part biography, part group history,
part musical analysis, and part cultural history.
Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies,
Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 2006 -
call number 782.4216609 Bea-R), edited by Kenneth Womack and
Todd R. Davis, is a collection of essays that apply cultural studies
methods to the study of the Beatles and their work.
History is well represented this month. Just in time
for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown comes Karen
Ordahl Kupperman's The Jamestown Project
(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007
-
call number 973.21 Kup) provides a history of the colony's
struggle to survive and how it ultimately became a model for other
British colonies in America. African American history
comes to the front in I've Got a Home in
Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 -
call number 306.3620922 Sma) in which Karolyn Smardz Frost tells
the story of the escape of married slaves, Thornton and Lucie
Blackburn, from Louisville, Kentucky to Toronto, Canada. Their
escape, and the attempt to bring them back to the United States, led
to the 1833 Blackburn Riots in Detroit and set the tone for U.S. -
Canadian relations on the issue of slaves seeking freedom in Canada.
African American history merges with medical history in
Race and Medicine in Nineteenth- and
Early-Twentieth-Century America (Kent, OH: Kent State
University Press, 2007 -
call number 362.108996 Sav) in which Todd L. Savitt (medical
humanities and history, East Carolina University) provides a medical
history as it affected African Americans, from specific diseases
like sickle-cell anemia to medical experimentation to slave life
insurance to African American medical schools and African Americans
in the medical profession.
British history is represented by Lawrence James's
The Middle Class: A History
(London: Little, Brown, 2006 -
call number 305.550942 Jam) is, despite the broad title, a look
at the middle class in Britain.
Two new books deal with Asia.
Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World Beyond Asia
(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2006 -
call number 959.70432 Beh), edited by Priscilla Roberts, is a
collection of essays that attempts to internationalize the Vietnam
War by looking at topics such as relations between China and
Vietnam, China's relations with Cambodia, and the Soviet view of
China and Vietnam. Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland examine
the mid-1990s famine in North Korean in which as many as 1 million
may have died in Famine in North Korea:
Markets, Aid, and Reform (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2007 -
call number 363.8095193 Hag).
The media in the Middle East is the topic of
Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq,
Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006 -
call number 306.2091749 Lyn) in which Marc Lynch (political
science, Williams College) argues that Al-Jazeera and other
independent Arab media have changed Arab politics by breaking state
control of news and information.
American education is again under scrutiny in
The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking
Education Gap for American Children (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2006 -
call number 428.4071 Hir) in which E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (author of
Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know) takes
on the issue of declining scores in the reading ability of American
school children.
Richard Kyle (history and religion, Tabor College) looks at
evangelicals and their relationship to American popular culture
and how each affects the other in
Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006 -
call number 270.82 Kyl).
U.S. mental health policy is examined in
Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy
in the United States since 1950 (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2006 -
call number 362.20973 Fra) by Richard G. Frank and Sherry A.
Glied.
Finally, Alvin Toffler (Future
Shock,
The Third Wave) and Heidi Toffler are back with
Revolutionary Wealth: How it Will be
Created and How it Will Change our Lives (New York:
Knopf, 2006 -
call number 339 Tof), which looks at how wealth will be created
in the future and who will get it and how.
Juvenile
Tales Our Abuelitas Told Us: A Hispanic
Folktale Collection (New York: Atheneum Books for Young
Readers, 2006 -
call number J 398.208968 Cam), by Isabel F. Campoy and Alma Flor
Ada, collects twelve folktales from the Latino heritage.
Sy Montgomery's Quest for the Tree
Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006 -
call number J 599.22 Mon) provides text and beautiful color
photographs of scientist Lisa Dabek's journey to Papua New Guinea in
search of the Matschie's tree kangaroo.
A Caldecott honor book, David McLimans's
Gone Wild: An Endangered
Animal Alphabet (New York:
Walker, 2006 -
call number J 591.68 Mel) covers the alphabet from Chinese Alligator
to Grevy's Zebra, providing basic information on each animal.
A Newbery honor book, Rules (New
York: Scholastic Press, 2006 -
call number JF L8842r), by Cynthia Lord, is a look at feeling
different, the need for acceptance, and the question of what is
normal as told from the viewpoint of 12-year-old Catherine, who has
an autistic brother.
The following titles are about to be published,
on-order, or are in process. Keep an eye out for them on the
New Book Shelf in the library.
Karaoke: The Global Phenomenon by Zhou Xun and Francesca
Tarocco.
Joseph Margulies's Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power.
Gravity's Arc: The Story of Gravity from Aristotle to Einstein
and Beyond by David Darling.
Julia B. Corbett's Communicating Nature: How We Create and
Understand Environmental Messages.
Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication
Technologies by Andrew Chadwick.
David A. Weintraub's Is Pluto a Planet? A Historical Journey
Through the Solar System.
Elizabeth Jolley on February 13 at age 83.
Jolley wrote books often described as "Australian gothic," including
titles such as Mr. Scobie's Riddle, Miss Peabody's
Inheritance, The Well, and The Sugar Mother.
Egon Bondy on April 9 at age 77. Bondy, a Czech poet
and philosopher, wrote a large number of books, most of which were
printed secretly and seldom published in the West.
Kurt Vonnegut on April 11 at age 84. While Vonnegut
also wrote plays and essays, he is best know for novels such as
Slaughterhouse-Five,
Cat's Cradle, or
Breakfast of Champions. For a complete list of
Vonnegut's works in the library,
click here.
Hans Koning on April 13 at age 85. Koning, who wrote in
many forms and genres, is probably best-known for his non-fiction
work, Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth. He
also wrote a number of novels, four of which (A Walk with Love
and Death, The Revolutionary, Death of a Schoolboy,
and The Petersburg-Cannes Express) were made into movies.
David Halberstam on April 23 at age 73. A journalist,
Halberstam is probably best-known for
The Best and the Brightest, about America's involvement in
Vietnam. Halberstam also wrote a number of books on sports,
often alternating between a book on sports and a book on a more
serious topic. For a complete list of Halberstam's books in
the library,
click here.
Paul Erdman on April 23 at age 74. Erdman, an
economist, is best-known for writing popular novels in the field of
financial fiction (or fi-fi as Erdman often called it), using his
economic expertise for works such as The Billion Dollar Sure
Thing, The Crash of '79, and The Panic of '89.
Columbia University announced the
winners of the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes in letters and music.
The winners, announced on Monday, April 16, will receive a $10,000
award and will be honored in a ceremony at Columbia on May 21.
The winners are:
Fiction - Cormac McCarthy for The Road (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) (check
the status of the library's copy)
History - Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff for The Race Beat:
The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) (check
the status of the library's copy)
Biography - Debby Applegate for The Most Famous Man in
America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (New York:
Doubleday, 2006)
Poetry - Natasha Trethewey for Native Guard (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
General Nonfiction - Lawrence Wright for The Looming Tower:
Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2006) (check
the status of the library's copy)
Music - Ornette Coleman for the album Sound Grammar (check
the status of the library's copy)
Drama - David Lindsay-Abaire for Rabbit Hole
Special Citation - To science fiction author Ray Bradbury (click
here to check for Ray Bradbury titles in the library)
Special Posthumous Citation - To jazz legend John Coltrane (click
here to check for John Coltrane CDs in the library)
The Mystery Writers of America announced the 2007 Edgar winners at
their 61st annual banquet on April 26. Among the winners were:
Best Novel - Jason Goodwin, The Janissary Tree
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006)
Best First Novel by an American Author - Alex Berenson,
The Faithful Spy (New York: Random House, 2006)
Best Critical/Biographical - E. J. Wagner, The
Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of
Fear (New York: Wiley, 2006)
For a complete list of winners and nominees, see the Mystery Writers
of America Web site at
http://www.mysterywriters.org.