Book 'em

New Books | Coming Soon | Obituaries | Awards | Other News

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.


It's been a busy month with lots of new titles.  We even have some new fiction and new juvenile titles.  For some reason, this month has also been heavy on poetry with the 2007 edition of Best American Poetry and new collections by Eavan Boland and Greg Delanty.
 

New Books

Fiction

Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band is Playing & Leviathan '99 (New York: William Morrow, 2007 - call number F B7268n) presents two new novellas from science fiction master Ray Bradbury.

Edited by J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Christopher, Narn i chin Hurin: The Tale of the Children of Hurin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007 - call number F T577n) tells the complete story of Middle-Earth's First Age, a story that first appeared in incomplete forms in the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth.



Non-Fiction

Current events make Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2007 - call number 355.3540973 Sca) the most timely book on the New Book Shelf.  Award-winning investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill takes a look at this now well-known private army and security force in a work written before the most recent incident in Iraq.

For those following the current Presidential campaign, there are two new books that may be of interest.  Barack Obama: Speeches 2002-2006 (Carlsbad, CA: Excellent Books, 2007 - call number 815.6 Oba) provides the text of 19 of Obama's speeches between 2002 and 2006, including his keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a speech you can see on volume 19 of the Great Speeches Series.  Also of interest will be Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge (New York: Knopf, 2007 - call number 973.929 Cli-B), the famed Watergate reporter's biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As we look at current events and head into the next Presidential campaign, media coverage and how the media work become important issues.  To many people, blogs are now the most important, or at least most read, media.  Aaron Barlow looks at what makes blogs so popular and what it means to our society, with an emphasis on the role of blogs in politics and citizen journalism in The Rise of the Blogosphere (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007 - call number 070.4 Bar).  You may also want to check out the video, If You Can't Beat 'em Blog 'em, which first appeared as an episode of Nightline.

As always, biography is well represented this month.  Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (New York: HaperCollins, 2007 - call number 741.5092 Sch-M), by David Michaelis, is the life of Charles "Sparky" Schulz and how his life affected and played out in his comic strip.  Eva Jean Wrather's Alexander Campbell: Adventurer in Freedom, A Literary Biography, vol. 2 (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 2007 - call number 286.6 Cam-W v. 2) covers the years 1823 to 1830 and focuses on Campbell's monthly The Christian Baptist.  A third volume is planned.  Alice Cherki's Frantz Fanon: A Portrait (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006 - call number 965.046 Fan-C) is the English translation of a work originally published in France and is a biography of the thinker and writer of such works as The Wretched of the Earth and A Dying Colonialism.  In W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007 - call number 305.896073 Dub-B), Edward J. Blum (history, San Diego State) looks at the spiritual and religious side of the scholar and civil rights activist.  Incidentally, the library has also added the Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois, a 19-volume set of 21 literary works by Du Bois with Henry Louis Gates as the series editor.  Each volume is cataloged separately.

Ronald Reagan is the topic of a couple of new books.  The Reagan Diaries (New York: HarperCollins, 2007 - call number 973.927 Rea 2007) reprint the daily diary kept by Reagan during his eight years as President.  In Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007 - call number973.927 Col), Robert Collins (history, Missouri) looks at the influence of Reagan in the country's move from malaise to a new sense of confidence and optimism, while at the same time dealing with growing federal deficits, foreign policy issues, and AIDS, among other challenges.

Somehow, fair trade implies first the coffee industry (maybe that's just my caffeine need talking).  Two new books will help you learn more.  In Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007 - call number 382.41373 Fri), Gavin Fridell (politics, Trent University) argues that fair trade has moved from an alternative trading network to a market niche and examines what that change has meant politically and economically.  Meanwhile, Daniel Jaffee attempts to answer the question of whether fair trade is working by using the coffee farmers in Mexico as a case study to examine the social, economic, and environmental benefits of fair trade in Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 - call number 382.41373 Jaf).  You may also want to check out the video Black Gold.

Four new books new with health care issues, from bioethics to the health care industry.  In Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007 - call number 174.2951 Bro), Howard Brody explores the ethics of the relationship between doctors and the drug companies.  Embryo Culture: Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 - call number 618.1780092 Koh) is Beth Kohl's first-hand account of in vitro fertilization, its emotional and psychological stresses, and the ethical questions faced during the process.  Truth, Lies, and Public Health: How We are Affected When Science and Politics Collide (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007 - call number 362.10973 Fin), edited by Madelon Lubin Finkel, is a collection of essays that look at what happens when ideology distorts science.  Essays deal with such topics as AIDS, stem cell research, and medical marijuana among others.  Finally, the subtitle pretty much says it all in Peter Conrad's The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007 - call number 362.1 Con).

Juvenile literature, or more specifically, Judy Blume, is the subject of Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume (New York: Pocket Books, 2007 - call number 813.54 Blu-E).  Edited by Jennifer O'Connell the book is a collection of two dozen essays by women writers on the impact of Blume's work on their lives.

Keeping with the literature theme, John Leland, in Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think) (New York: Viking, 2007 - call number 813.54 Ker-L), argues the book remains relevant, not because it is about rebellion, but because it is about growing up.

Two books deal with the writing and editing process.  Alice LaPlante's The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007 - call number 808.042 Lap) is a 600+ page guide to both fiction and creative non-fiction with lots of examples from the work of authors like Anton Chekhov, John Cheever, and Joan Didion.  Susan Bell, a professional editor for 20+ years, provides a how-to edit guide in The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007 - call number 808.027 Bel).

Several new books deal with the history of broad social movements.  The subtitle says it all, except for the book's focus on Europe, for Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Movements in the 20th Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006 - call number 335.020904 Win) by Jay Winter (history, Yale).  Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 2007 - call number 306.7660973 Lon), edited by Thomas A. Foster, is a collection of essays focused on colonial and early United States.  In Bearing Witness Against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006 - call number 261.8097309 You), Michael Young (sociology, Texas) argues that religion was at the heart of early social reform by looking a the reform movements of the 1830s.

In keeping with the religious studies theme, Graham Dwyer and Richard J. Cole have edited The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007 - call number 294.5512 Har 2007), a collection of essays that look at the Hare Krishnas throughout their forty-year history.

Five hundred years of London history is covered by some 100 maps and accompanying text in Peter Whitfield's London: A Life in Maps (London: The British Library, 2006 - call number Q 911.421 Whi).

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007 - call number 327.1273009 Wei) is a lengthy history of the Central Intelligence Agency by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Weiner.

Finally, with the World Series completed, there is one more baseball book.  In Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball's Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006 - call number 796.3576409 Car), Gene Carney investigates why it took almost a year for the fix to become known or, to put it in Watergate terms, who knew what and when did they know. 



Juvenile

The new juvenile titles are highlighted by two that, while not newly published, are new to the Library.

Lois Ehlert's Nuts to You (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1993 - call number JF Eh56n) is a picture book of the adventures of a squirrel in a New York City apartment.

Written for students in the early primary grades, Why do Leaves Change Color? (New York: HarperCollins, 1994 - call number J 582.16 Mae), by Betsy Maestro, examines the basic science of how leaves change color in the fall.

The cover of Chris Crutcher's new book, Deadline (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2007 - call number JF C8891d), asks "What if you only had one year to live . . . and you knew it?"  The book is Crutcher's answer as told through the eyes of the main character, Ben Wolf.

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.

The Rosenwald Schools of the American South by Mary S. Hoffschwelle

Robert T. Morgan's Boone: A Biography

Slave Trade Debate, a collection of primary documents on the debate in Britain

Ben Yagoda's When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech for Better and/or Worse.

Illness in the Academy: A Collection of Pathographies by Academics, edited by Kimberly R. Myers.

 

Obituaries

Peg Bracken on October 20 at age 89.  Originally an advertising copywriter, Bracken is probably best known for her humorous The I Hate to Cook Book, which led to a number of follow-ups such as The I Hate to Housekeep Book.

Eve Curie Labouisse on October 22 at age 102.  She is best known for Madame Curie, a biography of her mother, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie.

G. A. Renner on October 24 at age 75.  A reporter for the Hartford Courant, Renner wrote extensively on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and after his retirement wrote Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II.

Jane Cooper on October 26 at age 83.  A poet, Cooper produced five collections of her work, including The Weather of Six Mornings (her first) and The Flashboat: Poems Collected and Reclaimed (the most recent).

Peter Viertel on November 4 at age 86.  Author and screenwriter, Viertel often used his Hollywood experiences and friendships with the famous in his writings such as White Hunter, Black Heart and Dangerous Friends: At Large with Huston and Hemingway in the Fifties.

Norman Mailer on November 10 at age 84.  Mailer, who wrote novels, biographies, and works of nonfiction, was successful from his first book, The Naked and the Dead, through more than 30 additional books.  He twice won Pulitzer Prizes; in 1968 for The Armies of the Night and in 1979 for The Executioner's Song.  For a complete list of Mailer's works available in the Hiram College Library, click here.
 

Awards

Each year the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation awards Whiting Writers's Awards of $50,000 to ten upcoming writers of talent and promise.  The ten winners this year were:
 

William D. Cohan's The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. won the 2007 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year.



Winners of the third annual Quill Book Awards have been announced.  Winners are voted on by the general reading public.  Winners were announced in 19 categories.  Among the winners were:

Book of the Year: Angels Fall by Nora Roberts
General Fiction: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Poetry: For the Confederate Dead by Kevin Young
Biography/Memoir: Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
Children's Picture Book: Flotsam by David Wiesner
Young Adult/Teen Book: Sold by Patricia McCormick

For a complete list of all the winners, click here.
 

Other News

During this year, the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature will be sponsoring campus visits by three authors.  To see which books by those authors the library owns, just click on the author's name.  Please note that additional books may be on order and are not included in the list you retrieve.

Jim Daniels                                                       Clyde Edgerton                                                     Barry Lopez



Several people asked about the four books mentioned by Linda Rea during her installation as the new Bissell chair.  Here's the latest information on each title:

Pretty Bird: A Novel (by Scott Simon) - check the Hiram College Library catalog

Mountains Beyond Mountains (by Tracy Kidder) - check the Hiram College Library catalog

Three Cups of Tea (by Greg Mortenson) - on order, request a copy through OhioLINK

Guatemala: Blood in the Cornfields (by Bonnie A. Dilger) - on order