Book 'em

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.

Wow!  There have been a lot of new titles coming to the New Book Shelf this month.  There are even some fiction titles - with more coming in the next week or two.  The juvenile titles included in this month's Book 'em barely touch upon the number of new books for kids that are new.  And again, there are more coming soon, including works from series such as A Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl, and Candlewick.  There are so many new titles, I couldn't even find a way to work in my favorite title, Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them.  So, if you're looking for some summer reading, come check it out!  Have a good summer and we'll see you in the fall.

New Books

Fiction

The fiction this month is highlighted by new works from two literary giants.  Joyce Carol Oates's The Gravedigger's Daughter (New York: Ecco, 2007 - call number F Oa8g 2007) is the story of a German immigrant family settling in upstate New York in the late 1930s.  The Bad Girl (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 - call number F V4264t), by Mario Vargas Llosa, is the story of Ricardo and his love for Lily, the bad girl, who changes names and personas with ease.

Two-time Booker Prize-winner Peter Carey returns with His Illegal Self (London: Faber, 2008 - call number F C189h), the story of Che, the son of sixties radicals raised in isolation by his New York grandmother.


Non-Fiction

Women in American politics is the subject of two new books this month.  In Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008 - call number 324.623092 Pau-A), Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene look at Paul's contributions to the women's suffrage movement in the United States.  Erika Falk analyzes press coverage of eight Presidential campaigns by women from Victoria Woodhull (in 1872) through Carol Moseley Braun (in 2004) in Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008 - call number 324.9730082 Fal).

U. S. history is represented by David W. Bright's A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped Freedom: Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2007 - call number 973.7115 Bli), in which Blight tells the story of two slaves, Wallace Turnage and John Washington, who escaped slavery and fled to the North and also reprints the narratives of both Turnage and Washington about their escapes.

That title is a good segue into new books dealing with the Civil Rights movement.  First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007 - call number 796.357092 Rob), edited by Michael G. Long, reprints letters to and from the baseball pioneer dealing with race and other issues in America.  Wesley C. Hogan tells the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and its role in the civil rights movement in Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007 - call number 323.1196073 Hog).  In The Lost Promise of Civil Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007 - call number 323.1196073 Gor), Lisa L. Goruboff (law, University of Virginia) provides a look at the legal history of the civil rights movement, both the NAACP strategy of reinterpreting the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and the attempts of lawyers in the Justice Department, as early as the 1930s, to establish the rights of African American workers.

Those titles are a good segue into two other books that deal with the 60s in America.  David Barber (history, University of Tennessee - Martin) tells the history of the Students of a Democratic Society, a large, radical group of the sixties in A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why it Failed (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008 - call number 378.1981 Bar).  In Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s: An Oral History (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007 - call number 303.4840922 Kis), Jeff Kisseloft interviews 15 people from the sixties ranging from Bernard LaFayette (a freedom rider), to Barry Melton (guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish) to David Meggyesy (NFL linebacker).

Four books this month deal with food.  In Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008 - call number 363.80973 Win), Mark Winne, director of the Hartford Food System, explains what it takes to feed the country's hungry by focusing on Hartford, CT.  Beans: A History (New York: Berg, 2007 - call number 641.3565 Alb), by Ken Albala (history, University of the Pacific), is a world history of the food staple, in its many varieties, complete with recipes.  The history of the banana and its fate as a victim of fungus is told by Dan Koeppel in Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (New York: Hudson Street Press, 2008 - call number 634.772 Koe).  Most of us associate turkey almost exclusively with Thanksgiving, but while Andrew F. Smith covers that, he also provides, with recipes, a history of turkey as a food in The Turkey: An American Story (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006 - call number 641.36592 Ami).

I guess it was only a matter of time until this physics book appeared.  We've had The Physics of Basketball and The Physics of Star Trek.  Now Diandra L. Leslie-Pelecky (physics, University of Nebraska) gives us the physics of auto racing in The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed (New York: Dutton, 2008 - call number 796.720153 Les).

Three new titles deal with health, either history or policy. Challenges of an Aging Society: Ethical Dilemmas, Political Issues (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007 - call number 174.29897 Cha), edited by Rachel A. Pruchno and Michael A. Smyer, is a collection of essays that look at the ethical and policy issues that come with an aging population.  Medical historian Jonathan Engel looks at the history of AIDS and its treatment around the world in The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS (New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2006 - call number 614.599392 Eng).  Allan M. Brandt (history of medicine, Harvard Medical School) won a Bancroft Prize for The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (New York: Basic Books, 2007 - call number 338.476797 Bra), a look at how smoking became so deeply imbedded in American society.

Surprisingly, only four biographies this month.  Michael Punke's Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West (New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2007 - call number 599.643092 Gri-P) is a biography of Grinnell and his efforts to save the buffalo from extinction.  Washington Irving: An American Original (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008 - call number 817.24 Jon) is Brian Jay Jones's biography of the first great American writer, best remembered for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (New York: Amistad, 2008 - call number 973.0496 Wel-G), by Paula J. Giddings (Afro-American Studies, Smith College) examines the life and legacy of the nineteenth-century journalist and activist.  Justin Wintle tells the story of Burmese social activist Aung San Suu Kyi in Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience (New York: Skyhorse, 2007 - call number 959.1053 Aun-W).

Dashiell Hammett is the subject of two not-so-new books that are new to our collection.  In Reading Early Hammett: A Critical Study of the Fiction Prior to The Maltese Falcon (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2004 - call number 813.52 Ham-P), LeRoy Lad Panek (English, McDaniel) analyzes Hammett's earliest writings.  Forty years after Hammett's death, Jo Hammett, his daughter, breaks her silence to tell her side of the Hammett story in Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001 - call number 813.52 Ham-H).

Four new books look at the Middle East, radical Islam, and the war on terror.  Gundrun Kramer (Islamic Studies, Free University) provides the background to the current Middle East in A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008 - call number 956.94034 Kra).  The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008 - call number 958.1046 Tal) is a collection of essays, edited by Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, that looks at the history of the Taliban.  Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli have translated a number of documents and pronouncements by leading Al Qaeda figures in Al Qaeda in its Own Words (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008 - call number 363.325 Alq).  Ayesha Jalal (history, Tufts University) moves the study of Islam and the concept of jihad to Asia in Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008 - call number 297.720954 Jal).

Two new titles focus on music.  Originally published in Spanish nearly 30 years ago, Cesar Miguel Rondon's The Book of Salsa: A Chronicle of Urban Music from the Caribbean to New York City (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008 - call number 781.64 Ron) is a history of salsa music just recently translated into English.  In Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007 - call number 791.4409768 Hav), Craig Havighurst examines the effect of radio station WSM, the home of the Grand Ol' Opry, on the city of Nashville.

The Grameen Bank continues to be a topic of interest.  In Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2007 - call number 338.7 Yun), Grameen Bank founder and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus shares his vision for a business model that combines free markets with creating a more humane world.  Nicholas P. Sullivan looks at GrameenPhone, a partnership between the Grameen Bank and Norway's Telenor and how it contributes to economic growth among the poor in the Third World in You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World's Poor to the Global Economy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007 - call number 384.5350917 Sul).

Michael Curtin provides a study of the film industry in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore in Playing to the World's Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 - call number 791.430951 Cur). 

In Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007 - call number 289.7771 Mac), Joe Mackall (English and journalism, Ashland University) tells the story of the Shetler family of Ashland County, Ohio.

Finally, are two books of special importance.  Armageddon in Retrospect (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008 - call number 813.54 Von 2008) contains twelve writings by Kurt Vonnegut (several never before published) on war and peace, beginning with Vonnegut's letter to his parents telling them he was in a German POW camp.  Journals, 1952-2000 (New York: Penguin Press, 2007 - call number 973.92 Sch) contains the personal journals of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., probably the pre-eminent American historian of the second-half of the 20th century and a member of the Kennedy inner-circle.


Juvenile

Kay Jackson looks at rain forests and why they should be saved in Rain Forests (Farmington Hills, MI: Kidhaven Press, 2007 - call number J 577.34 Jac).

The Erie Canal as a technological wonder that transformed America is the theme of Martha E. Kendall's The Erie Canal (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2008 - call number J 386.4809747 Ken).  Keeping to the technology theme is Lynn Curlee's Skyscraper (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2007 - call number J 720.483 Cur), which looks at the history of building skyscrapers around the world.

Saving Juliet (New York: Walker & Company, 2008 - JF Se4868s), by Suzanne Selfors, tells the story of Mimi Wallingford, who is playing Juliet in a school play, and what happens when she finds herself and her costar are magically transported back to Shakespeare's Verona as the real Romeo and Juliet.

The continuing adventures (they started with Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale) of a stuffed rabbit in Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity (New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2007 - call number JF W667k 2007) by Mo Willems.

Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers is back with Game (New York: HarperTeen, 2008 - call number JF M9929g), the story of Drew Larson, who sees basketball as a way to college and success, but must deal with a new player who is becoming the team's star player in place of Drew.

Cheater: A Novel (New York: Dutton, 2008 - call number JF L333c) is Michael Laser's tale of Karl Petrofsky, a straight-A student, who gets in over his head after being recruited into a cheating ring and getting caught.

Claire A Nivola tells the story of Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize-winner and the founder of the Green Belt Movement, and her efforts to make Kenya green again in Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - call number J 333.72092 Maa-N).

Don't Bump the Glump! And Other Fantasies (New York: HarperCollins, 2008 - call number J 811.44 Sil 2008) is a re-issue of the first published book of poetry (it was originally published in 1964) by the late Shel Silverstein, including color illustrations by the author.

Lois Lowry takes a tongue-in-cheek look at classic children's literature themes in The Willoughbys (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008 - call number JF L9556w), in which the four Willoughby children plot to become lovable orphans, while the parents launch a plan to be free of their children.

Katie Smith Millway explains for children the idea of microloans and how they work in One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference (Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2008 - call number JF M648o), which tells the story of a Ghanaian boy who buys one chicken through a community loan program.


 

Coming Soon

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.

Late Russian leader Boris Yeltsin is the subject of Yeltsin: A Life by Timothy J. Colton.

School and politics come together in David Kirp's The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics.

Just in time for the Presidential election is Strange Bedfellows: How Late Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke by Russell L. Peterson.

Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Think, by John L. Esposito, surveys Muslims around the world.

Separate From the World, the latest Ohio Amish mystery from P. L. Gaus, is scheduled for release in August.

 

Obituaries

Aime Cesaire on April 17 at age 94.  Cesaire, a native of Martinique and a politician, is best known for his anti-colonial poetry and a 1950 book, Discourse on Colonialism, as well as being an early advocate of black pride. 

William W. Warner on April 18 at age 88.  Warner, an administrator at the Smithsonian, was best known for his book Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay, which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Awards

On April 17, the Cleveland Foundation announced the winners of the 2008 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which recognize outstanding books that "contribute to society's understanding of racism and foster an appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures."  The winners are:

     Junot Diaz.  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

     Mohsin Hamid.  The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

     William Melvin Kelley was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award.

For more information and a list of previous winners, go the the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Web page at http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/


All of the PEN award winners have now been announced.  The winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is Kate Christensen's The Great Man.  Winners of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story are Cynthia Ozick and Peter Ho Davies.  Among the winners of PEN Literary Awards are:

     PEN/Nabokov Award to Cynthia Ozick
     PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography to Janet Malcolm for Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice
     PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship to Theresa Nelson, author of the forthcoming Julia Delany: The American Version
     PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry to Kimiko Hahn.

For more information see the PEN web site and the PEN/Faulkner web site.


The Los Angeles Times celebrated the winners of the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes on April 25.  Among the winners recognized were:

     Biography - Simon Sebag Montefiore for Young Stalin
     Fiction - Andrew O'Hagan for Be Near Me
     History - Tim Weiner for Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
     Young Adult Fiction: Philip Reeve for A Darkling Plain

For more information and a complete list of winners, see the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes page.
 

On April 28 the Jane Addams Peace Association announced the winners of the 55th Jane Addams Children's Book Awards.  Winners were:

     The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom by Emily Arnold McCully
     We are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin by Larry Dane Brimner

For more information on the award and a list of Honor Books, see the Jane Addams Peace Association web page. 


The Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 62nd Edgars on May 1 in New York City.  Among the winners were:

     Best Novel: Down River by John Hart
     Best Critical/Biographical: Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley
     Best Young Adult: Rat Life by Tedd Arnold
     Best Juvenile: The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh

For all of the winners and nominees, see the Mystery Writer's of America's Edgars Web page at http://www.theedgars.com/nominees.html.