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Volume 2 |
April 2007 |
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 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.
There is no new fiction to speak of this
month, but there is a lot of non-fiction, as well as a nice
selection of juvenile books. So let's get to it!
Non-Fiction
Two new books focus on Ohio. Kathleen L. Endres
(communications, University of Akron) looks at the role of women in
Akron's history through their involvement and work in clubs,
organizations, and societies in Akron's
"Better Half": Women's Clubs and the Humanization of the City,
1825-1925 (Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2006 -
call number 367.977136 End). Lisa Watts has edited
a collection of some 20 essays and poems by contemporary Ohio
writers - who have won four Pulitzer Prizes and several National
Book Awards among them - about growing up in Ohio in
Good Roots: Writers Reflect on Growing Up
in Ohio (Athens, OH: University of Ohio Press, 2007 -
call
number 810.932771 Goo).
One of the hotter domestic issues these days is immigration
policy. Aristide R. Zolberg (political science, New School
for Social Research) provides a history of this country's policy on
immigration from colonial times to the present in
A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in
the Fashioning of America (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006 -
call number 325.73 Zol).
Nurses in history are the topic of two new, very different
books. In Unlikely Entrepreneurs:
Catholic sisters and the Hospital Marketplace, 1865-1925
(Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2005 -
call number 362.11068 Wal), Barbra Mann Wall studies the
development of religious hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, focusing on the role of Catholic nuns. Evelyn M.
Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee recount the history of the
59,000+ volunteer nurses, of whom 217 died and more than 1600
received awards for meritorious service and bravery in
And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses
in World War II (New York: Knopf, 2003 -
call number 940.547573 Mon).
Keeping with a medical theme is
Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2007 -
call number 614.470973 All) in which Arthur Allen tells the
history of the use and controversy around vaccines in the United
States from colonial Boston to the present.
Disaster planning is the theme in
This is Only a Test: How Washington, D. C. Prepared for Nuclear War
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 -
call number 363.3509753 Kru), in which David F. Krugler
(history, University of Wisconsin - Platteville) examines the
capital's attempts to organize and plan for nuclear attack from 1940
to 1962 and the effect of that threat and the planning for it on the
city's residents.
When physics meets sports, it usually involves baseball, but
basketball gets the treatment in The
Physics of Basketball (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2006 -
call number 796.3230153 Fon) by Naval Academy physics professor
John J. Fontanella. Yes, he explains the physics of the
shattering backboard pictured on the cover.
Two new books focus on the new media.
Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of
Media (New York: Routledge, 2007 -
call number 302.231 Blo), edited by Mark Tremayne (journalism,
University of Texas) is a collection of essays that look at blogs
and what happens when people increasingly rely upon them for the
news. Xigen Li edits another collection of essays that look at
the growth, delivery, and role of newspapers moving to the Web in
Internet Newspapers: The Making of a
Mainstream Medium (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006 -
call number 070.172 Int).
Protest and dissent are part of the American tradition and
two new books bring together examples of protest literature.
Dissent in America: The Voices that Shaped
a Nation (New York: Pearson Education, 2006 -
call number 303.4840973 Dis), edited by Ralph E Young, is
a collection of speeches, sermons, letters, songs, and other items
from 400 years of American history, from an excerpt of Roger
Williams's The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) to writings by
anti-Iraq War protester Cindy Sheehan (2005).
American Protest Literature
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006 -
call number 303.4840973 Ame), edited by Zoe Trodd, also collects
protest documents, but focuses on literature in a narrower sense.
Palestine is the topic of two new books. Rashid
Khalidi's The Iron Cage: The Story of the
Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press,
2006 -
call number 956.9405 Kha) looks at the failure to establish a
Palestinian state before Israeli statehood in 1948 and the impact on
that failure on current events.
Living Palestine: Family, Survival, Resistance, and Mobility Under
Occupation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006
-
call number 305.89274 Liv), edited by Lisa Taraki, is a
collections of essays on family and daily life in Palestine.
History, or at least a historical approach to a topic, brings
together three very different books. Ralph E.
Ehrenberg (former chief of the Geography and Map Division at the
Library of Congress) provides great reproductions of all kinds of
maps from ancient to gas state roadmaps (a 1927 Texaco roadmap of
Florida) with lots of commentary on maps and their history in
Mapping the World: An Illustrated History
of Cartography (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006
-
call number Q 912.09 Ehr). All types of gambling, from the
ancients to 20th-century Las Vegas, the world's number one tourist
destination, get the historical treatment in
Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling
(New York: Gotham Books, 2006 -
call number 795.09 Sch) by David G. Schwartz, the director of
the Center for Gaming Studies at the University of Nevada - Las
Vegas. Carol Fisher's The American
Cookbook: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006 -
call number 6441.5973 Fis) looks at cookbooks from colonial
times through the 20th century with each chapter focusing on a
specific type of cookbook, such as the USDA Cookbooks or the
Cookbooks for Special Audiences.
The Vietnam War is the topic of a more traditional history
book. James H. Willbanks, a retired Army officer, provides a
basic history of the Tet Offensive that was a turning point in the
Vietnam War in The Tet Offensive: A Concise
History (New York: Columbia University, 2007 -
call number 959.704342 Wil).
Two new books look at Christianity and its history. In
A History of the End of the World
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006 -
call number 228.06 Kir), Jonathan Kirsch tells the history of
the Book of Revelation in Western civilization. Bart D.
Ehrman provides an analysis of the Gospel of Judas and how it
relates to the other Gospels, along with a history of the discovery
of the Gospel and answers to questions raised by the it in
The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New
Look at Betrayer and Betrayed (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006 -
call number 229.8 Her).
David Parker, former curator of the Charles Dickens Museum in
London, provides a history of Christmas in England and the
effect (or not) of Charles Dickens and his book
A Christmas Carol on re-vitalizing the holiday in
Christmas and Charles Dickens
(New York: AMS Press, 2005 -
call number 823.83 Par).
As always, there are biographies everywhere. German
filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is the subject of two very good
new biographies. Jurgen Trimborn's
Leni Riefenstahl: A Life (New York: Faber and Faber, 2007
-
call number 791.430233 Rie-T), originally published in Germany,
is the more scholarly work (Trimborn is a film professor at the
University of Cologne), while Steven Bach's
Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl (New York:
Knopf, 2007 -
call number 791.430233 Rie-B) is a look at her life and films
before and after Nazi Germany. You can also check out the VHS
tape of
Triumph of the Will, one of her more famous films during the
Nazi Era.
Journalist and editor I. F. Stone is the subject of Myra
MacPherson's All Governments Lie: The Life
and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone (New York:
Scribner, 2006 -
call number 070.92 Sto-M). If you want to read Stone's
best work, check out The Best of I. F.
Stone (New York: Public Affairs, 2006 -
call number 909.825 Sto), which collects Stone's best columns
from the 1950s to the 1970s.
George Gershwin: His Life and Work
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006 -
call number 780.92 Ger-P) is a mammoth (nearly 900 pages)
biography of one of this country's best-known composers written by
Howard Pollack (music, University of Houston).
Two philosophers are the subjects of new biographies.
Desmond M. Clarke's Descartes: A Biography
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006 -
call number 194.1 Cla) is the life of the French philosopher
best remembered for his quote, "I think, therefore, I am," but who
contribute so much more to philosophy, particularly in its relation
to science. Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Restless Genius (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005 -
call number 843.56 Dam), by Leo Damrosch, places the writings of
the 18th-century author and political philosopher in the context of
his life.
Kinsley M. Bray's Crazy Horse: A Lakota
Life (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006 -
call number 970.3092 Cra-B) is a biography of the Lakota war
chief.
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007 -
call number 823.912 Pot-L 2007), by Linda Lear, is the life
story of the woman who wrote
The Tale of Peter Rabbit and a lot of other best-selling and
still well-known children's books.
Only Art Buchwald could write Too Soon to
Say Goodbye (New York: Random House, 2006 -
call number 814.54 Buc 2006) in which the late humorist tells of
declining to take kidney dialysis and being given three weeks to
live. He moves into a hospice, plans his funeral, receives old
friends to say goodbye, and prepares to die - only to have his
health improve enough that five months later he leaves the hospice.
Buchwald eventually dies of kidney failure (January 17, 2007) at his
son's home.
Juvenile
Eight books on visiting the library highlight this month's list of
juvenile books. Among those titles are two books featuring
series regulars everyone knows in Margret
and H. A. Rey's Curious George Visits the Library
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003 -
call number JF R3302m) and Amelia
Bedelia, Bookworm (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2003 -
call number JF P2192a) by Herman Parish.
In 1929 the author of
Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, gave the copyright for that book to
the Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital; copyright
the Hospital guarded closely and which made the Hospital a lot of
money. Now to celebrate the centennial of the publishing of
Peter Pan, the Hospital has licensed the first official sequel,
Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in
Scarlet (New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006 -
call number JF M128p 2006).
In Romeo's Ex: Rosaline's Story
(New York: Henry Holt, 2006 -
call
number JF F452r), Lisa Fiedler tells the story of Romeo and
Juliet from the viewpoint of Rosaline, the girl Romeo originally
went to meet.
Ann Brashares's Forever in Blue: The Fourth
Summer of the Sisterhood (New York: Delacorte Press, 2007
-
call number JF B7363f) is the fourth, and supposedly last,
installment of the adventures of the sisterhood that began with
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
If You Decide to Go to the Moon
(New York: Scholastic Press, 2005 -
call number J 629.454 Mcn) by Faith McNulty tells you how to
take a trip to the moon and, more importantly, how to return, in an
elegant verse-style prose. Illustrator Steven Kellogg provides
beautiful color pictures on every step of the trip and back.
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.
To the Last Salute is the World War I memoir of Austrian
naval hero Georg Von Trapp, who became immortal as the father in the
Sound of Music.
Karen L. King's The Secret Revelation of John is good choice
for those who were intrigued by Jonathan Kirsch's A History of
the End of the World (above).
If you want the story of Humpty Dumpty from a different point of
view, look for Dimity Dumpty: The Story of Humpty's Little Sister,
a children's book by Bob Graham.
Barbara Warnick's Rhetoric Online: Persuasion and Politics on
the World Wide Web is a brief introduction to the topic.
The Google Story by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed is a
company history.
Richard S. Prather on February 14 at age
85. Prather was best known for his novels featuring private
eye Shell Scott including Find This Woman, Joker in the
Deck, and Gat Heat, most of which were published in the
1950s and 1960s.
Marjabelle Y. Stewart on March 3 at age 82. Stewart was
best known for her books on etiquette including Marjabelle
Stewart's Book on Modern Table Manners and Executive
Etiquette in the New Workplace.
Michael Dibdin on March 30 at age 60. Dibdin, a British
crime novelist, is best known for the ten novels featuring police
detective Aurelio Zen, including Ratking, Dead Lagoon,
and Back to Bologna. An eleventh Zen book, End Games,
is scheduled for publication this fall.
Thomas Rogers on April 1 at age 79. An emeritus English
professor at Penn State, Rogers is probably best known for his
novels The Pursuit of Happiness (made into a 1971 movie
starring Michael Sarrazin and Barbara Hershey) and
The Confession of a Child of the Century by Samuel Heather.
The National Association of Book
Critics awarded its annual National Book Critics Circle Awards on
Thursday, March 8 in New York City. Among the winners were:
Fiction: Kiran Desai for
The Inheritance of Loss
General
Nonfiction: Simon Schama for
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution
Biography: Julie Phillips for James
Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Criticism: Lawrence Weschler for
Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences
Poetry: Troy Jollimore for Tom Thomson
in Purgatory
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award:
John Leonard
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in
Reviewing: Steven G. Kellman