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Volume 3 |
October 2007 |
Issue 3 |
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.
This has turned out to be a bit of a slow month again.
We are once again without new fiction or juvenile (although that
should change next month as new fall titles, particularly in
juvenile, begin to roll out). The Non-fiction category,
thought, has some very interesting new titles. Check them out!
Fiction
Nothing new this month. Check back in the November issue.
Non-Fiction
Two titles with a Hiram College connection lead off this
month's list. Donald F. Fleming and Janet M. Pope have edited,
and written the Preface for, Henry I and
the Anglo-Norman World: Studies in Memory of C. Warren Hollister
(Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2007 -
call number 942.023 Hen). Joseph T. Glatthaar and James
Kirby Martin (Hiram College Class of 1965) look at the Oneida, one
of the few (if not the only) Indian tribes to side with the
colonists, not the British, in the American Revolution in
Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and
the American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006 -
call
number 973.308997 Gla).
This year marks the 35 anniversary of the death of Harry Truman
and the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Truman Doctrine.
Five new books look at Truman, his policies, his place in history,
and the events that occurred during his administration.
George Kennan: A Study in Character
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007 -
call number 327.2092 Ken-L) is John Lukacs's biography of the
foreign affairs officer best known for his 1947 Foreign Affairs
article,
"The Sources of Soviet Conduct," that set forth the theory of
containment. Many of Truman's policies, especially in foreign
affairs, are often associated with others (Kennan on containment,
the Marshall Plan, etc.), but in The First
Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal
Internationalism (Lexington, KY: University Press of
Kentucky, 2006 -
call number 973.918 Tru-S), Elizabeth Edwards Spalding
(government, Claremont McKenna College) argues that it was Truman
himself who defined and articulated the theory of containment,
leading him to create a new internationalism that differed both from
Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. How well Truman
succeeded and where he rates as a President is an ongoing debate
that is a good example of how history is written, revised, and
revised a bit again. Eminent Truman scholar Robert H. Ferrell
argues in a series of essays on specific topics (Korea, atomic bomb,
etc.) that revisionist historians have been hasty and argumentative
in their re-evaluation of Truman and his presidency in
Harry S. Truman and the Cold War
Revisionists (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press,
2006 -
call number 973.918 Tru-F 2006). One of those disputes,
Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb, is the topic of a series
of essays in Hiroshima in History: The
Myths of Revisionism (Columbia, MO: University of
Missouri Press, 2007 -
call
number 940.54252 Hir), edited by Robert James Maddox, that
dispute revisionist interpretations of the decision. Finally,
the last book from the late David Halberstam,
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korea War (New
York: Hyperion, 2007 -
call
number 951.90424 Hal), is a long, detailed account of that war.
Biography is represented by two new books. Lanny
Ebenstein profiles former Federal Reserve Board chairman Milton
Freidman, with an emphasis on the development and growth of
Friedman's economic beliefs in Milton
Friedman: A Biography (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
-
call number 330.092 Fri-E). David Maraniss (who previously
profiled Vince Lombardi) covers the life and career of Pirates Hall
of Famer Roberto Clemente in Clemente: The
Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 2006 -
call number
796.357092 Cle-M).
Two books look at women in American politics. In
Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling: Women
and Congressional Elections (New York: Routledge, 2006 -
call number 324.973092 Pal), Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon
provide an analysis of the obstacles and opportunities for greater
representation by women in both houses of Congress. Leslie
Petty (English, Rhodes College) brings a literary and historical
viewpoint to the topic by looking at the increasing number of late
19th and early 20th century novels about politically active women in
Romancing the Vote: Feminist Activism in
American Fiction, 1870-1920 (Athens, GA: The University
of Georgia Press, 2006 -
call
number 813.4 Pet).
The machinery of American government is the subject of two
new books. Adam L. Warber does an analysis of some 5,500
Presidential executive orders (used for such purposes as
desegregating the military, interring Japanese-Americans, and
limiting stem-cell research) from FDR through Clinton in
Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency:
Legislating from the Oval Office (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2006 -
call number 352.2350973 War).
Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006 -
call number 328.73071 Waw), by Gregory J. Wawro and Eric
Schickler is a look at the use of the filibuster as one of many
rules in the lawmaking process.
The Prendergast Letters: Correspondence
from Famine-Era Ireland, 1840-1850 (Amherst, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006 -
call number
941.96081 Pre), edited by Shelley Barber, is a fascinating
collection of letters from parents in Ireland to children who had
emigrated to America during the Irish Potato Famine.
Patrick S. Washburn's The African American
Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press, 2006 -
call number 071.308996 Was) is a brief history of the African
American press from the first newspaper in New York City in 1827
through the Civil Rights era and up to the end of the 20th century.
Finally, in On Strike and On Film: Mexican
American Families and Blacklisted Filmmakers in Cold War America
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007 -
call number 331.8928234 Bak) by historian Ellen R Baker
(Columbia University) looks at the interaction of gender, race, and
class during the 1950 Empire Zinc mine strike in New Mexico.
Also looks at the adaptation of the events into the 1954 film
Salt of the Earth, which was made by some of the those
blacklisted in Hollywood.
Juvenile
Nothing new this month. Check back in the November issue.
There are some really interesting books that
should be out soon, so keep an eye out!
David Prerau. Seize the Daylight: The Curious and
Contentious Story of Daylight Savings Time.
James Lawrence Powell. Grand Canyon: Solving Earth's
Greatest Puzzle.
Holly Bishop. Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey - the
Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World.
Leo Lowenfish. Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious
Gentleman.
Tim Weiner. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
Note: This is a finalist for a National Book Award.
Richard
Cook on August 25 at age 50. A music journalist, Cook
wrote several highly regarded books on jazz, including Blue Note
Records: The Biography and It's About That Time: Miles Davis
On and Off Record and was co-author of The Penguin Guide to
Jazz Recordings.
Nina Schneider on September 8 at age 94. Schneider
wrote nearly 80 children's science books with her husband and
several other children's books on her own. She also wrote a
novel, The Woman Who Lived in a Prologue.
James Oliver Rigney, Jr. on September 16 at age 58.
Rigney, who wrote under the pen name Robert Jordan, is probably best
known for his Wheel of Time series consisting of eleven
volumes. He also helped continue the Conan the Barbarian
series, writing three titles in that series.
Charles Griffith on September 28 at age 77. Griffith, a
screenwriter and director, is probably best known for writing the
screen play to The Little Shop of Horrors.
Walter Kempowski on October 5 at age 78. Kempowski, an
author and diarist, is probably best known for his World War II book
Das Echolot: Ein Kollektives Tagebuch
(The Sonar: A Collective Diary).
On October 10, the National Book Foundation announced the
finalists for the 2007 National Book Awards. The winners
will be announced on November 14. For a complete listing of
all the finalists, go to the
National Book Foundation Web page.
On October 11, the Swedish Academy awarded Doris Lessing with
the Nobel Prize in literature. Among her books are her
debut novel
The
Grass is Singing,
Golden Notebook,
The Summer
Before Dark, The Fifth Child, and
many other works.
On October 27, the Ohioana Library Association will present
its annual book awards. Winners include:
Fiction: The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery
Nonfiction: The Great Deluge: Hurricane
Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas
Brinkley
Poetry: Blue Front by Martha Collins and
Declension in the Village of Chung Luong by Bruce Weigl
Juvenile: The Lemon Sisters by Andrea
Cheng and
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
About Ohio:
Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community, photographs
by Gary Harwood and text by David Hassler
For a complete listing of all the awards given, go to the
Association's Web page.