Book 'em

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 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.

We have had a lot of new books roll out since the last issue, particularly in the non-fiction area.  Included in this group are some of the first books we ordered this fiscal year.  So, let's get started and enjoy!

New Books

Fiction

Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike is back with The Terrorist (New York, Knopf, 2006 - call number F Up19t), his 22nd novel, in which he tells the story of 18-year old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy and his devotion to Allah and the Qur'an.

Prayer for the Night: An Ohio Amish Mystery (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006 - call number F G237p) is the fifth Amish mystery from College of Wooster chemistry professor, P. L. Gaus.  The mystery focuses on the murder of a teenager and the abduction of a second teen from a group of Amish teens on their Rumschpringe, the time they are allowed to sample the outside world.


Non-Fiction

A number of recent books deal with the Middle East, the U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and terrorism.  Perhaps the most interesting is Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005 - call number 956.70443 Riv) by Riverbend, the screen name of an anonymous Iraqi girl  The book reprints her postings from inside Iraq with a brief history to set the stage. 

Two books deal specifically with U.S. relations with Iran.  In Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006 - call number 955.0542 Bow) journalist Mark Bowden provides a history of the Iran hostage crisis, when the U.S. embassy was ceased and U.S. employees were held hostage.  Ali M. Ansari (history, University of St. Andrews in Scotland) looks at the current status of U.S. - Iranian relations in the context of long years of mutual distrust from the 1953 overthrow of Mosaddeq through the hostage crisis of 1979 to the present in Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Conflict in the Middle East (New York: Basic Books, 2006 - call number 327.73055 Ans).

Also of interest are two more books dealing with terrorism and the U.S. response.  In Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006 - call number 361.7509176) J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins look at the connection between some charities and terrorist organizations with funds from the charities going to fund terrorist operations.  Alfred W. McCoy (history, University of Wisconsin - Madison) give a historical account of the CIA's use of torture, particularly psychological torture, in A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006 - call number 323.49 Mcc)

When many people hear the phrase "regime change," they think of the current war in Iraq, but the U. S. actually has a long history of such actions as evidence by two new books.  Stephen Kinzer tells the history of U.S. involvement in regime change in Hawaii (yes, Hawaii!) to Iraq in Overthrow: American's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2006 - call number 327.73009 Kin).  In U. S. Intervention and Regime Change in Nicaragua (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005 - call number 972.85052 Sol), Mauricio Solaun (Ambassador to Nicaragua in the Carter administration) outlines U. S. policy during the Carter years and how that policy, with respect to the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution, not only failed, but helped impede democracy.

Particularly timely for this month, the fifth anniversary of 9/11, is David Simpson's 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006 - call number 973.931 Sim), in which Simpson (English, University of California at Davis) looks at efforts to commemorate this event (primarily at "Ground Zero") and concludes the whole process has been co-opted for political advantage.

Presidents are the topics of two books.  Ira Rutkow (clinical professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey) delivers a brief biography of James A. Garfield with the emphasis clearly on Garfield's assassination, his medical treatment in the context of the state of American medicine at that time, and his death in James A. Garfield (New York: Times Books, 2006 - call number 973.84 Gar-R 2006), part of the American Presidents series.  The book is particularly timely given that this year marks the 175th anniversary of Garfield's birth and the 125th anniversary of his death.  The College will be having a number of events to mark this year, not the least of which will be the Friends of the Hiram College Library fall program (October 22 at 2 p.m.) featuring Professor David Anderson speaking on " 'Knight of the Quill': James A. Garfield, Writer."

In Sounding the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005 - call number 352.2386 Ken-T), Richard J. Tofel looks at how the speech came together, including trying to determine how much Kennedy actually wrote himself.  Don't forget the accompanying DVD in the video collection!

We talk a lot about just war, but what about a just peace?  Pierre Allan and Alexis Keller edited a collection of essays that look at the thinking behind peace and justice in much the same way we look at the concept of just war in What is a Just Peace? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 - call number 327.172 Wha).

Biography is usually defined as the story of someone's life, but two new books stretch that definition a bit.  Akhil Reed Amar (law, Yale Law School) tells the life story of the U. S. Constitution from birth to the present in America's Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005 - call number 342.73029 Ama).  Robert J. Donia tells the story of the city of Sarajevo from its founding in the fifteenth century to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to the 1984 Winter Olympics to the three-year siege in the mid-1990s in Sarajevo: A Biography (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006 - call number 949.742 Don 2006).

The more traditional approach to biography is also well represented this month.  In The Electric Life of Michael Faraday (New York: Walker and Company, 2006 - call number 530.092 Far-H) Alan Hirshfeld (physics, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth) looks at the life of the famous scientist. Murray G. Murphey looks at the life of a key American philosopher in C. I. Lewis: The Last Great Pragmatist (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 2005 - call number 191 Lew-M).  Michael Collins, who organized the Irish Republican Army, is the subject of Mick: The Real Michael Collins (New York: Macmillan, 2005 - call number 941.50821 Col-H) by Peter Hart. 

Last, but not least, are three books of literary criticism.  Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2006 - call number 813.52 Cal-R) is a collection of essays edited by Robert L. McDonald on the works of the author probably best known for the novel Tobacco Road.  A collection of essays edited by Bernice M. Murphy looks at Shirley Jackson's work in Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2005 - call number 818.54 Jac-S).  Gerri Bates gives a brief biography and chapters on eight different works by Alice Walker in Alice Walker: A Critical Companion (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005 - call number 813.54 Wal-B), part of the publisher's Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers series.
 

Coming Soon

The Whistling Season is the latest novel from Montanan Ivan Doig.

What could one add to the subtitle of Lee H. Whittlesey's Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park?

Elizabeth Grossman looks at the effects of technology in our trash dumps in High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health.

For the statistically challenged, there is Jeffrey S. Rosenthal's Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities.

Jennifer Zeng's Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman's Fight for Freedom is a first-hand account of contemporary China.

In Hard-Boiled Masculinities, Christopher Breu looks at the portrayal of men in popular magazines between the two world wars.

 

Obituaries

Shamsur Rahman on August 17.  He was in his late 70s.  A Bangladeshi poet, journalist, and human rights advocate, he was best known for his political poetry during the 1970s as Bangladesh moved toward independence from Pakistan.  Rahman published more than 60 volumes of poetry, but few were translated into English from Bengali.  Among the few that were translated are The Best Poems of Shamsur Rahman and The Devotee, the Combatant: Selected Poems of Shamsur Rahman.

Yizhar Smilansky on August 21 at age 89.  An Israeli writer who published as S. Yizhar, Smilansky was best known for his stories of the 1948 war of independence and included such works as Hirbet Hizah, The Captive, and Days of Ziklag.

Ralph Schoenstein on August 24 at age 73.  A humorist, Schoenstein was a commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered" and wrote books such as The I-Hate-Preppies Handbook and Toilet Trained for Yale: Adventures in 21st-Century Parenting.  He also ghostwrote a number of books for celebrities.

Gerald Green on August 29 at age 84.  Green, a novelist and screenwriter, was also one of the creators of the "Today" television show.  His most famous novel is probably The Last Angry Man and his best know screenplay is probably the television miniseries "Holocaust," which won an Emmy.

Naguib Mahfouz on August 30 at age 94.  Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, won the 1988 Novel Prize in Literature, the only Arab writer to do so.  Considered on the the Arab world's leading novelists, Mahfouz is probably best known for his "Cairo Trilogy" (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street).  A number of his works are banned in Arab countries, including Children of the Alley, which was banned in his native Egypt.

Gyorgy Faludy on September 1 at age 95.  A Hungarian poet, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Faludy may be best known for his autobiographical novel, My Happy Days in Hell.  Faludy twice fled his native Hungary, once when the Nazis invaded (he eventually enlisted in the U. S. army) and again in 1956 after the failed uprising.