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Volume 3 |
April 2008 |
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.
This has been a very busy month with lots of new titles. For
those of you already looking for some fiction reading for the
summer, there are eight new titles (with more on the way).
Juvenile literature is also well-represented this month. As
usual, we have a lot of non-fiction on a wide variety of subjects.
Check them out!
Fiction
Nobel winner J. M. Coetzee is back with
Diary of a Bad Year (New York: Viking, 2008 -
call number F
C652d), the story of Senor C, a South African writer living in
Australia.
The Senator's Wife (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2008 -
call number F
M6185s), by Sue Miller, looks into the lives of women, marriage,
and friendship.
People of the Book: A Novel (New
York: Penguin, 2008 -
call number F
B7914p), a fictionalized account of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an
illuminated manuscript that has survived centuries due to the
efforts of people of various faiths, is the new novel from Pulitzer
winner Geraldine Brooks.
Christopher Buckley takes a satirical look a the coming Social
Security crisis in Boomsday: A Novel
(New York: Twelve/Warner Books, 2007 -
call number F
B8565b).
Run (New York: Harper, 2007 -
call number F
P271r), by Ann Patchett (author of
Bel Canto),
looks at what makes a family as two families are through together
during a snowstorm.
Russell Banks sets the tale of Vanessa Cole, socialite and adopted
daughter of a well-to-do family, in the Adirondack Mountains in 1936
in The Reserve: A Novel (New
York: HarperCollins, 2008 -
call number F
B2266r).
Confessions of a Gambler
(Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2007 -
call number F
J155c), by Rayda Jacobs, is the tale of a divorced Muslim woman
living in South Africa and the troubles that arise when she becomes
addicted to gambling.
Finally, Otto Penzler has edited The Black
Lizard Big Book of Pulps (New York: Vintage Crime/Black
Lizard, 2007 -
call number F B5616 2007), a collection of crime short stories
from the golden age of the pulp magazine and featuring authors such
as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner.
Non-Fiction
This month we start with two collections of essays.
Portraits and Observations: The Essays of
Truman Capote (New York: Random House, 2007 -
call number 813.54
Cap 2007) is the first publication devoted solely to the essays
by Truman Capote, best known for
In Cold Blood,
including the last piece he wrote before his 1984 death,
"Remembering Willa Cather." Award-winning political columnist,
critic, and poet Katha Pollitt gives stories and essays based on
here life in Learning to Drive: And Other
Life Stories (New York: Random House, 2007 -
call number 814.54
Pol).
That latter title is veering toward memoir, which brings us
to My Appalachia: A Memoir
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007 -
call number
976.953 Far) in which Sidney Saylor Farr, a leading figure in
Appalachian letters, tells of her life in southeastern Kentucky.
(And if you find this interesting, you might want to check out
Rebecca Caudill's 1966 book,
My Appalachia: A
Reminiscence.)
Thomas Alva Edison figures in two new books. Randall
Stross's The Wizard of Menlo Park: How
Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World (New York:
Crown, 2007 - call
number 621.32 Edi-S) is a biography in which Stross suggests
that Edison's greatest invention may well have been his own fame.
The second book may give that theory some creedence. Michael
J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott ( a great-grandniece of Edison)
tell us what we can learn from Edison to become more innovative
through the Five Competencies of Innovation™. Sorry, but you
will have to read (or at least look a the Table of Contents)
Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of American's Greatest
Inventor (New York: Dutton, 2007 - call number 608 Gel)
to find out what those five competencies are.
This month also brings three new biographies. In
Flora Stone Mather: Daughter of Cleveland's
Euclid Avenue and Ohio's Western Reserve (Kent, OH: Kent
State University Press, 2007 - call number
361.74092 Mat-H),
Gladys Haddad (American Studies, Case Western Reserve University)
looks at the life of the socialite and philanthropist.
Brian Dirck looks at Abraham Lincoln's law career and practice,
which accounted for most of Lincoln's adult life, in
Lincoln the Lawyer (Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 2007 -
call number 973.7
Lin-D 2007). In Anne McCaffrey: A
Life with Dragons (Jackson, MS: University Press of
Mississippi, 2007 -
call number 813.54
Mcc-R 2007), Robin Roberts tells the story of the science
fiction and fantasy author who was the first woman to win the Hugo
and Nebula awards.
That last title segues nicely into several books of literary
criticism, including two titles in the
Understanding Contemporary American Literature Series.
Justin D. Edwards looks at the life and work of the author of novels
such as Annie
John,
Lucy, and
The Autobiography of My Mother in
Understanding Jamaica Kincaid (Columbia, SC: University
of South Carolina Press, 2007 -
call number
813.0099729 Kin-E), while Pat Rigelato looks at Akron-born and
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove, with a particular emphasis on
poems collected in such works as
Thomas and Beulah,
Yellow House on the Corner, and
On the Bus with
Rosa Parks, in Understanding Rita
Dove (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press,
2006 - call number
811.54 Dov-R). On Harper Lee:
Essays and Reflections (Knoxville, TN: University of
Tennessee Press, 2007 -
call number 813.54
Lee-O), edited by Alice Hall Petry, is a collection of essays on
Lee and her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
To Kill a
Mockingbird. In Looking for
Hamlet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 -
call number 822.33
S8 Ham), Marvin W. Hunt provides an overview of the play and the
400 or so years of literary criticism that goes with it.
Technology and its affect on culture and society is the
subject of two new books. Lee Siegel's
Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
(New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2008 -
call number
303.4833 Sie) examines the Internet and how living online
affects our lives and our culture. Narrower in focus is
Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and
the Future of American Politics (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2008 -
call number
320.973014 Win) in which Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais
argue that the 2008 election will mean another political makeover
for the United States, the result of the millennials coming of
political age with the full emergence (and convergence) of
Internet-based communication.
Two books this month deal with a topic that can best be labeled
economic survival. In Off the
Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006-
call number 330
Ven), Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh (sociology, Columbia) looks at
Maquis Park, a poor African American neighborhood on the south side
of Chicago and how it survives with a daily life of unregulated,
unreported, and untaxed work. Halfway around the world, Sandya
Hewamanne (anthropology, Drake University) looks at the lives of
women working in garment factories in a free trade zone in
Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone:
Gender and Politics in Sri Lanka (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008 -
call number
331.40495493 Hew).
A number of new titles deal with U. S. history. In
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the
American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008 -
call number 973.71
Fau), historian, and new president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust
examines the meaning of death during the Civil War, a war that was
especially bloody. Eric C. Muller (law, University of North
Carolina) looks at the tribunals set up to judge the loyalty of the
70,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry placed in tribunal camps in
1942 in American Inquisition: The Hunt for
Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II (Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007 -
call number
940.531773 Mul). Western writer and English professor (Kansas)
Michael L. Johnson looks at our view of the west as both a place and
a state of mind from the 1840s to the present in
Hunger for the Wild: America's Obsession
with the Untamed West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of
Kansas, 2007 -
call number 978 Joh). Susan Jacoby's
The Age of American Unreason (New York: Pantheon, 2008
- call number
973.91 Jac) is a critique of modern American society and the
"junk thought" that passes for knowledge. Think of it as this
generation's version of Richard Hofstadter's work, such as
Anti-Intellectualism in America.
No other event has done more to shape the United States in the past
fifty years than the Vietnam War. Two new books deal
with different aspects of that war.
The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007 -
call number
959.7041 Fir), edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik
Legevall, is a collection of essays on the French defeat in Vietnam,
a defeat that led to American involvement. In
Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and
Betrayal in the ARVN (New York: New York University
Press, 2008 - call
number 959.704332 Wie), Andrew Wiest (history, University of
Southern Mississippi) tells the history of the South Vietnamese Army
(ARVN), as seen through the lives of two rising officers. Pham
Van Dinh eventually surrendered and defected to the enemy, becoming
a teacher in the reeducation camps, while Tran Ngoc Hue endured
thirteen years of imprisonment after being captured.
Also dealing with Asia is Yasmin Khan's
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007 -
call number
954.042 Kha), a study of the 1947 partition of India into an
independent Hindu India and a separate Moslem Pakistan.
The Middle East is the category for Eric Hazan's
Notes on the Occupation: Palestinian Lives
(New York: New Press, 2006 -
call number
956.953044 Haz), in which Hazan, an editor and publisher from
Paris, France, tells the narrative of everyday Palestinian lives in
the occupied West Bank cities of Nablus, Qalqilya, and Hebron.
Three new titles deal with the environment. In
Pedal Power: The Quiet Rise of the Bicycle
in American Public Life (Boulder, CO: Paradigm
Publishers, 2008 -
call number 388.3472 Wra), political scientist J. Harry Wray
looks at the increasing use of bicycles in America as a means of
transportation. Award-winning photojournalist Gary Braasch
users lots of color photos to show what the text explains on global
warming in Earth Under Fire: How Global
Warming is Changing the World (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2007 -
call number
363.73874 Bra). Ecospirit:
Religions and Philosophies for the Earth (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2007 -
call number 201.77
Eco), is a collection of essays on the intersection of theology,
philosophy, and ecology edited by Laurel Kearns and Catherine
Keller.
Bioethics is the subject of John Harris's
Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for
Making Better People (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2007 - call
number 174.9599935 Har), in which Harris argues for the use of
genetic engineering to make better humans. The book serves as
a counterpoint to Michael J. Sandel's
The Case Against
Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (noted
in the January 2008 issue of Book 'em).
Four new books deal with various topics related to the field of
education. In Charter Schools:
Hope or Hype? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2007 - call number
371.01 Buc), Jack Buckley and Mark Schneider take a close look
at data on charter schools in Washington, DC and conclude that,
generally speaking, the charter schools fall short of claims they
are a better alternative to public schools. Adam Fairclough
(American history and culture, Leiden University) tells the story of
African American teachers in the South from emancipation to
integration and their role in the civil rights movement in
A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the
Segregated South (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2007 -
call number
371.1008996 Fai). In The Battle
Over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007 -
call number
344.730796 Die), Bruce J. Dierenfield looks at the case of
Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court case in 1962 that barred
organized prayer in the public schools.
Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades
K-8 (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007 -
call number 372.35
Tak) is the report of the Committee on Science Learning,
Kindergarten Through Eight Grade of the National Research Council,
which reviews the literature on teaching and learning K-8 science.
Juvenile
It may be a tad late in the year for Ann Purmell's
Maple Syrup Season (New York:
Holiday House, 2008 -
call number JF
P975m), which looks at how maple syrup is made in the
traditional way.
Newbery Award-winner Richard Peck is back with
On the Wings of Heroes (New
York: Dial, 2007 -
call number JF P336o), a story of the home front during World
War II.
Andrea Stenn Stryer won the 2008 Schneider Family Book Award for
Young Children for Kami and the Yaks
(Palo Alto, CA: Bay Otter Press, 2007 -
call number JF
St899k), the story of a deaf Sherpa boy who proves himself by
saving the family's yaks during a fierce storm.
Puff the Magic Dragon (New York:
Sterling, 2007 -
call number J 782.42 Yar), by Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton,
pairs the lyrics of the song with paintings by Eric Puybaret.
Don't forget the accompanying four-song CD in the music collection.
Geraldine McCaughrean's The White
Darkness: A Novel (New York: HarperTempest, 2007 -
call number HF
N128w) is a coming of age/survival book set in Antarctica and
featuring Sym, a shy, fourteen-year-old girl.
In D is For Drink Gourd: An African
American Alphabet (Chelsea, MI: Sleeping Bear Press, 2007
- call number J
973.0496 San), Nancy I. Sanders gives four line stanzas to give
each letter context within African American history and culture with
additional information provided. The illustrations are by E.
B. Lewis.
The relationship between ten-year-old Sprig and her big sister
Dakota is at the heart of Norma Fox Mazer's
Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear
(New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007 -
call number JF
M457t).
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.
David Anderegg's Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them.
The Gravedigger's Daughter is the latest novel from Joyce
Carol Oates.
Susan Conklin Thompson has collected in one book Mayan Folktales.
Nigel Hamilton's How To Do Biography is a logical follow-up
to his recent
Biography: A Brief History.
Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of
Conscience by Justin Wintle.
Armageddon in Retrospect brings together new and unpublished
writings by Kurt Vonnegut on war and peace.
Arthur C.
Clarke on March 19 at age 90. Clarke, who wrote nearly 100
science fiction books, is probably best known for
2001: A Space
Odyssey (which may be better known for the Stanley Kubrick
movie), which was continued in
2010: Odyssey Two
and 2061: Odyssey
Three, and
Childhood's End, as well as a number of short stories gathered
in The Collected
Stories of Arthur C. Clarke.
Hugo Claus on March 19 at age 78. A Belgian, who wrote
more than 20 novels, 60 plays, and several thousand poems, Claus is
probably best known for his 1983 novel The Sorrow of Belgium.
Jon Hassler on March 20 at age 74. Hassler wrote a
series of novels poking fun at small town Minnesota, such as The
Dean's List, Staggerford, and North of Hope.
Rafael Azcona on March 23 at age 81. The Spanish
novelist and screenwriter is probably best known for his
Oscar-winning film Belle Epoque.
Robert Fagles on march 26 at age 74. A translator of
ancient Latin and Greek texts, Fagles was best known for his
translations of
The Illiad,
The Odyssey, and The Aeneid (he was one of the few
translators who tried all three), which have sold millions of
copies.
Arturo Vivante on April 1 at age 84. Known primarily
for his short stories that appeared in The New Yorker, he also wrote
three novels, A Goodly Babe, Doctor Giovanni, and
Truelove Knot.
Columbia University announced the winners of the 2008 Bancroft Prize on March 14. The Prize, established by a bequest from historian Frederic Bancroft, annually honors books in the fields of American history, biography, and diplomacy. This year's winners are:
Allan M. Brandt for The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America. (Note: The library's copy is in processing - check the New Book Shelf in the next couple of weeks).
Charles Postel for The Populist Vision (Note: The library has a copy on order).
Peter Silver for Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (Note: The library's copy is being cataloged).
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman
Foundation at Harvard University have announced this year's winners
of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards. Winners
are:
J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Mark Lynton History Prize: Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America by Peter Silver
J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award: The Means of Reproduction by Michelle Goldberg (to be published in 2009)
Literary winners of this year's Pulitzer Prize are:
History - Daniel Walker Howe for What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.
Drama - Tracy Letts for August: Osage County.
Biography - John Matteson for Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.
Fiction - Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
General Nonfiction - Saul Friedlander for The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.
Poetry - Robert Hass for Time and Materials and Philip Schultz for Failure.
For more information and list of the finalists, see the Puliter
Prize Web page at
http://www.pulitzer.org/ You may also be interested to
know that this month's display in the display case just to the right
as you enter the library features previous Pulitzer Prize winners,
as well as information about Joseph Pulitzer (Thanks, Terri).