The Gone-Away World

The gone-away world /Nick Harkaway. -- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
497 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9780307268860
1st American ed.

1. Adventure fiction. 2. Dystopias. 3. Love stories. 4. Science fiction.

823.92

Wu Shenyang, Master Wu of the Voiceless Dragon School of gong fu has a dry wit. He tells his English students in Cricklewood Cove to study the chi of Ella Fitzgerald and gong fu of Isaac Newton. He has them practice to the music of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers and Mozart. He tells them there are no Secret Teachings, no Iron Skin Meditation to turn aside weapons, no Ghost Palm Strike that cannot be avoided or deflected. “The truth is not hidden. It is simple.” But to humor his students he’s willing to tell them a story and make up a Secret Teaching. He also tells them to beware of his sworn enemies, the ninjas of the Clockwork Hand Society.

A decade or so later, these fighting skills are very useful to the SpecialOps forces (of which the narrator is a member) bogged down in a proxy war in Addeh Katir. It’s a small middle-eastern county and an Elective Theater in a very muddled conflict (or un-war) between the six powers involved. If the motives are vague, the high explosives are not. When the narrator is gouged by shrapnel (friendly fire variety) he is sent behind the lines to a blissful encounter with a very beautiful, if not particularly skillful, nurse named Leah. But romantic bliss is interrupted by the fortunes of war. In defiance of the Geneva Accords, someone attacks using poison gas. When news of this atrocity reaches the ears of the government at home the order comes down to use the new secret weapon in retaliation. While the new bomb is not a nuclear device, it does operate by using some basic forces of the universe, but not with a messy explosion—it just make the enemy (and anything surrounding it) Go Away. The enemies, the landscape, the atmosphere just cease to exist. It’s quite a surprise when the bombs go off. It’s followed by another surprise. The enemy also has these bombs, and soon large parts of the planet cease to exist.

Harkaway gives credit to three authors for his story: P. G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Alexandre Dumas. But, to me, his exuberantly witty prose, social commentary, and strong characters read like Charles Dickens.

Usurper of the sun

Usurper of the sun / Housuke Nojiri ; translated by John Wunderley.-- San Francisco : Haikasoru/VIZ Media, 2009.
276 p. ; 21 cm.
"Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing, Inc., c2002"
ISBN: 9781421527710

1. Earth – Effect of solar activity on—Fiction. 2. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 3. Science fiction. 4. Space flight to Mercury—Fiction. 5. Sun—Fiction.

895.636

Peering through the astronomy club’s telescope, a Japanese schoolgirl is the first to observe a giant tower on the planet Mercury. When other observatories confirm its existence Aki Shiraishi becomes the most interviewed person on Earth. It propels her into a career in astronomy. When the tower begins to construct a ring around Mercury that blocks sunlight from reaching earth, climactic disaster shakes the planet and civilization is in chaos. Eight years after her initial discovery and as the most prominent scientist in the new field of ringology, Aki arrives at Johnson Space Center in Houston to train for the Vulcan Mission, a mission to send a spacecraft to Mercury to destroy the ring.

Life sucks

Life sucks / Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, Warren Pleece ; coloring by Hilary Sycamore.-- New York : First Second, 2008.
186 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 9781596431072

1. Clerks (Retail trade) – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Graphic novels. 3. Vampires– Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

Dave’s life is boring and miserable. He’s the permanent night clerk at the Last Stop convenience store in a small strip mall in Los Angeles. All he does is work, sleep, and eat. The boss is on his case all the time. Most of the customers are obnoxious. The only thing that brightens up his life is when Rosa comes in with some of her Goth friends. She’s friendly, polite and she’s a vegetarian. Dave’s friends encourage him to ask her out. He may feel insecure and afraid, but after all, he is a vampire. It’s possible that she might find that appealing.

And here's another take on the book:
Tripping Toward Lucidity: Estella's Revenge: Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel

The guns of August

The guns of August / by Barbara W. Tuchman ; read by Nadia May.— Ashland : Blackstone Audiobooks, 2008.
1 WMA sound file (275541 KB) (19 hr., 10 min.)
ISBN: 9781433247439 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)
Originally published: New York, Macmillan, 1962.
Unabridged
Downloadable audio file.
Requires OverDrive Media Console
Mode of access: World Wide Web

1. World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns 2. World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front.

940.4144

Germany came close to winning the First World War in the first month of fighting. German commanders confidently expected to march their exhausted troops into Paris in the first week of September. The French Government has already fled the capital. It was to be the crowning glory of a month of victories. Germany had a forty-day plan for winning the war and their armies were right on schedule. In four days they expected to be in Paris. What they did not expect was for the retreating French forces to turn and attack.

Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize winning history stops on the eve of the first Battle of the Marne. It critiques the persistence of generals on both sides for their unwavering adherence to their war plan even in the face of contrary evidence that the enemy was not behaving as expected. Her portraits of officers and heads of state are vivid and witty, and her narrative style is superb. May skillfully reads the quotations in the narration in a subtly British, American, French, or German accented English.

Lunch lady and the cyborg substitute

Lunch lady and the cyborg substitute / Jarrett J. Krosoczka.-- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
[96] p. : ill. ; 18 cm.
ISBN: 9780375846830 (trade)

1. Graphic novels. 2. Robots – Comic books, strips, etc. 3. School lunchrooms, cafeterias, etc. – Employees – Comic books, strips, etc. 4. Schools – Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

What does the lunch lady in the school cafeteria do when she’s not spooning out sloppy Joes or urging you to put gravy on everything? The Breakfast Lunch starts to speculate. Terrence thinks she has a family to care for. Dee thinks she lives with a hundred cats, Hector wonders, “Maybe she’s some sort of super secret-agent spy or something.” Hector is right. And when she discovers an evil plot by the mad science teacher, she whirls into action with her spatu-copter, chicken nugget bombs and fish-stick nunchucks. With the help of her faithful sidekick Betty and her lunch tray laptop, she serves justice and lunch.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre / Charlotte Brontë ; read by Susan Ericksen.— Grand Haven: Brilliance Audio, 1997.
16 sound discs (20 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Compact discs
Directed by J. C. Howe
ISBN: 1596009403

1. Bildungsromans. 2. England – Fiction. 3. Governesses – Fiction. 4. Love stories. 5. Young women – Fiction.

823.8

Plain but spunky Jane remembers growing up unhappily orphaned among three rude cousins and a tyrannical aunt until she is sent away to a Charity School where she finds friends and a kind headmistress, but also some stern teachers and a penny-pinching administration. At age eighteen she sets out to seek, if not her fortune at least a living, as a governess. She’s hired to teach the ward of an eccentric landowner. Mr. Rochester has come into an inheritance of property and land in England that he had not hoped for as a youth. His manners are brusque and his looks are gruff. But he is unexpectedly charmed by the frankness of the new governess, although he does not express that to her immediately. For her part, Jane falls hopelessly in love with her new master, and must wrestle with the insurmountable difference in their social positions. In Jane’s breast passion, ambition, and honesty strive with reason, duty, obedience, and a desire to be accepted.

White Darkness

The white darkness : a novel / Geraldine McCaughrean. – 1st U.S. ed. – New York : HarperTempest, 2007, c2005.
373 p. ; 19 cm.
ISBN: 9780060890353 (trade)
Originally published: [Oxford] : Oxford University Press, 2005

1. Adventure fiction. 2. Antarctica --Fiction. 3. Deception --Fiction. 4. Oates, Lawrence Edward Grace, 1880-1912 -- Fiction. 5. Survival after airplane accidents, shipwrecks, etc. -- Fiction. 6. Swindlers and swindling -- Fiction.

823.914

Fourteen-year-old Symone struggles to survive in the coldest desert on earth, Antarctica. Adding to her trials are her traveling companions: a fanatic “uncle” obsessed with finding an entrance to the hollow earth and two confidence men. With friends like these, it’s no wonder that she relies on the companion of her imagination, Captain Lawrence Oates, who died on Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in 1912, for sound guidance.

This is a ripping good adventure and survival story that spooks the reader with enough spooky chills to simulate the Antarctic cold. It well deserves The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature that it received in 2008 from the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association

What to do about Alice?

What to do about Alice? : how Alice Roosevelt broke the rules, charmed the world, and drove her father Teddy crazy! / by Barbara Kerley ; illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham. – New York : Scholastic Press, 2008.
[48] p. : col. ill. ; 32 cm.
ISBN: 9780439922319

1. Children of presidents -- United States -- Biography. 2. Legislators' spouses -- United States -- Biography. 3. Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, 1884-1980. 4. Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919 -- Family.

973.9092

Theodore Roosevelt, famously said, “I can be president of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.” While his oldest daughter loved reading the books in her father’s library, she also loved to run through the parks in Washington pretending to be a horse. She roamed over the capital city at all hours of the day and night. She welcomed visitors to the White House draped by her pet snake, Emily Spinach, “named for its color and its resemblance to a very thin aunt.” She played cards, bet on the horses, and danced the hula on a visit to Hawaii. The newspapers loved her.

A river of words

A river of words : the story of William Carlos Williams / written by Jen Bryant ; illustrated by Melissa Sweet. – Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2008.
[34] p. : col. ill. ; 27 cm.
Bibliography: p. [31]
Includes chronology
ISBN: 9780802853028 (lib. bdg.)

1. Physicians -- United States -- Biography. 2. Poets, American -- 20th century – Biography. 3. Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963

Willie Williams was a very energetic boy. After playing with his friends, he would roam though the New Jersey countryside and then inspired by the poetry that his teacher read aloud in class, he would stay up late to write his own poems. It’s a good thing he had a lot of energy. He grew up to be a doctor and a poet. By the end of his life he had written 48 books and helped deliver over 3,000 babies.

Planting the trees of Kenya

Planting the trees of Kenya : the story of Wangari Maathai / Claire A. Nivola. –New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008.
[32] p. : col. ill. ; 24 x 28 cm.
"Frances Foster books."
ISBN: 9780374399184

1. Conservationists -- Kenya – Biography. 2. Green Belt Movement (Society : Kenya). 3. Maathai, Wangari, 1940- . 4. Tree planters (Persons) -- Kenya -- Biography. 5. Women conservationists -- Kenya – Biography.

337.72092

Wangari Maathai grew up on a farm in Kenya where the trees were green and the streams were clear. But when she came back from college in the United States, she found that most of the trees had been cut down. Instead of small farms there were large plantations growing tea to export. But without the trees and their roots the soil was blown away and washed into muddy streams. So she organized women to plant trees. Soon the rest of the family joined in the work and Wangari was giving away seedling trees to schoolchildren and soldiers to plant. She had started the Green Belt Movement.

Boys of steel : the creators of Superman

Boys of steel : the creators of Superman / by Marc Tyler Nobleman ; illustrated by Ross MacDonald.— New York : Knopf, 2008.
[40] p. : col. ill. ; 29 cm.
Bibliography: p. [39]
ISBN: 9780375938023 (reinforced)


1. Authors, American – Biography. 2. Cartoonists -- Canada -- Biography 3. Cartoonists -- United States -- Biography. 4. Shuster, Joe, 1914-1992. 5. Siegel, Jerry, 1914-1996.

741. 5092

It might be called the revenge of the nerds. One of Jerry Siegel’s teachers told the Cleveland teenager that the fantastic adventure stories he wrote were trash. His only friend in high school was Joe Shuster, who shared his love of science fiction and adventure. But while Jerry typed his stories, Joe drew his two-fisted heroes. Together they hoped they could create a comic strip and sell it to a newspaper.

One night Jerry had an idea. What if, instead of humans traveling to other planets and encountering aliens, an alien came to earth, not as an invader but as a friend? A hero who was strong and powerful who would right wrongs and fight for justice. The first thing in the morning he rushed over to his friend’s home to tell him about the idea and Joe began sketching. Although they weren’t able to sell their idea of a superman to the newspapers at first, they did find a publisher who was willing to buy their strips and take a chance at publishing them in a new format. The strips would be published together in a magazine of original strips, as a comic “book.”

Nobleman’s story is perfectly complemented by MacDonald’s illustrations, which evoke Shuster’s figures and style.

Abe Lincoln crosses a creek

Abe Lincoln crosses a creek : a tall, thin tale (introducing his forgotten frontier friend) / Deborah Hopkinson ; pictures by John Hendrix. -- New York : Schwartz & Wade Books, c2008.
[32] p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 25 x 30 cm.
ISBN: 9780375937682 (reinforced)

1. Best friends – Fiction. 2. Friendship – Fiction.. 3. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 – Childhood and youth – Fiction.. 4. Rescues – Fiction.

813.54

When he was seven-years-old Abraham Lincoln fell into the flooded Knob Creek near his home in Kentucky, and would probably have drowned but for the quick action of his friend Austin Gollaher who fished him out. This 1816 historical incident is the basis for the tale Hopkinson tells the reader and the illustrator. She imagines, as if she were recalling the story out loud, what the scene might have looked like and wondering what history would be like if young Abe had drowned then. Did Austin use a fishing pole or a branch to save his friend, or does he just dive in? “…that’s the thing about history—if you weren’t there, you can’t know for sure,” she says. Hendrix’s water-colored ink illustrations complement the playful speculative tone of the book.

Sinners welcome

Sinners welcome : poems / Mary Karr. -- New York : HarperCollins, c2006.
93 p. ; 22 cm.
Contents: Pathetic fallacy -- Revelations in the key of K -- Oratorio for the unbecoming -- Disgraceland -- Métaphysique du mal -- Descending theology. The Nativity -- Delinquent missive -- This lesson you’ve got -- The choice -- A major -- Waiting for God : self-portrait as skeleton -- At the sound of the gunshot, leave a message -- Elegy for a rain salesman -- Who the meek are not -- Hypertrophied football star as serial killer -- Orders from the invisible -- Requiem : Professor Walt Mink (1927-1996) -- Pluck -- Descending theology. Christ human -- Miss Flame, apartment bound, as undiscovered porn star -- Reference for ex-man’s next -- Winter term’s end -- Entering the kingdom -- Descending theology. The garden -- Hurt Hospital’s best suicide jokes -- Sinners welcome -- The first step -- A tapestry figure escapes for occupancy in the real world, which includes the death of her mother -- Mister Cogito posthumous -- For a dying tomcat who’s relinquished his former hissing and predatory nature -- Coat hanger bent into halo -- Last love -- The ice fisherman -- Descending theology. The crucifixion -- Red-circled want ad for my son on his commencement -- Son’s room -- Easter at Al Qaeda Bodega -- Garment district sweatshop -- Overdue pardon for mother with knife -- Descending theology. The resurrection -- A blessing from my sixteen years’ son -- Orphanage -- Still memory -- Meditatio -- Afterword: Facing altars : poetry and prayer.
ISBN: 0060776544

1. America poetry -- 21st century. 2. Christian poetry, American.

811.54


If the neon cross on the cover and the title hadn’t forewarned me the latest book of poems by the author of The Liar’s Club and Cherry, the large amount of traditional Christian religious imagery and subject matter would have come as bit of a surprise. Her memoirs of growing up in East Texas contain few references to religion and only a passing allusion to infrequent church visits with neighbors and a fight with girl who accused her (accurately) of saying that the pope dressed like a girl. Other than that there’s her flat statement on page 44 of The Liar’s Club, “We didn’t go to church.” Had I read her previous volumes of poetry I would have been more prepared, but I hadn’t.

So reading Sinners Welcome reminded me of the bits on Monty Python when John Cleese intones, “And now for something completely different.” If you are like me, you might want to start at the back of the book with the essay “Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer,” which tells of her 1996 conversion, “after a lifetime of undiluted agnosticism.” The poems themselves are clear, as befits a poet that proclaimed herself, “Against Decoration,” but certainly not without vivid images and language. And although religious, they are certainly not pious, as witnessed by titles like, “Hypertrophied Football Star as Serial Killer,” “Hurt Hospital’s Best Suicide Jokes,” and ”At the Sound of the Gunshot, Leave a Message.”

The woman I kept to myself

The woman I kept to myself : poems / by Julia Alvarez. -- Chapel Hill : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2004.
159 p. ; 21 cm.
ISBN: 1565124065

1. American poetry -- 21st century. 2. Women -- Poetry.

811.54


Emily in one hand, Walt in the other,
that’s how I learned my craft, struggling
to navigate my own way between them
and to get to where I wanted to end up:
some place dead center in the human heart.

From “Passing On” page 139

The result of Alvarez’s craft is far more direct than the idiosyncratic Emily Dickinson and more restrained than the verbose Walt Whitman. And in this volume it keeps to a strict form. The seventy-five poems are uniformly three stanzas, each stanza ten lines, and the median line ten syllables long. The subjects are reflective autobiography. They are very accessible, yet she arrives where she wants to be, in that dead center in the human heart.

A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier

A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier / Ishmael Beah. – [New York] : Audio Renaissance, 2007.
7 sound discs (8 hr., 30 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Read by the author
Compact discs
ISBN: 9781427202307

1. Beah, Ishmael, 1980- 2. Child soldiers -- Sierra Leone – Biography. 3. Sierra Leone -- History -- Civil War, 1991-2002 -- Participation, Juvenile – Biography. 4. Sierra Leone -- History -- Civil War, 1991-2002 -- Personal narratives. 5. Sierra Leone -- Social conditions -- 1961-

966.404

The West African nation of Sierra Leone was torn by civil war from 1991 to 2002. The country is still struggling to overcome the effects of this eleven-year conflict. This is the memoir of one of the participants. Beah remembers the war coming to his home when he was about twelve. When rebel soldiers attacked his village, he and his brother were separated from the rest of their family and began wandering through the jungle with some other boys trying to survive and stay away from the fighting. Captured and terrorized by rebel soldiers or by villagers who thought they might be spies or soldiers they escaped again and again. During one of these escapes Ishmael was separated from his brother, and then fell in with another group of boys. Eventually they came to a village protected by government soldiers.

When the rebels began to close in on the village the army impressed all the male villagers including the boys. They were given army shorts, t-shirts, and green headbands for uniforms and AK-47s. They were taught how to creep though the jungle, how to use and care for their automatic rifles, how to fire rocket propelled grenades, and how to use their bayonets. As Beah remembers it, “over and over in our training [the corporal] would say that same sentence: Visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you.” [The emphasis is in the original text.] Vivid images of revenge where reinforced by readily available marijuana, cocaine, “brown-brown” (cocaine mixed with gunpowder) and “white capsules” that Beah remembers having kept him awake for days on end. Thus boys aged ten and up were turned into brutally efficient soldiers who visited on rebel villages the same atrocities of which they had been the victims. Beah rose to the rank of junior lieutenant.

Then, unexpectedly, one day their commander ordered the boys to line up, put down their guns and get in the truck with civilians from UNICEF. They were taken to a rehabilitation center where they experienced drug withdrawal and how to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. The balance of the book is the story of an uneasy transition back to civilian life and eventual flight out of the county.

This is a very moving book, but also a hard book, not because it is difficult to follow the story. It’s told very clearly and affectingly by the author. The difficult part is listening to Beah’s eyewitness accounts of mutilated bodies and the other losses of the war: food, shelter, family, community and the ability to not live in deadly fear of your fellow human beings.

Something to declare

Something to declare / Julia Alvarez.— Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1998.
x, 300 p. ; 23 cm.
Contents: Something to Declare to My Readers -- Part One: Customs -- Grandfather's Blessing -- Our Papers -- My English -- My Second Opera -- I Want to Be Miss America -- El Doctor -- La Gringuita -- Picky Eater -- Briefly, A Gardener -- Imagining Motherhood -- Genetics of Justice -- Family Matters -- Part Two: Declarations -- First Muse -- Of Maids and Other Muses -- So Much Depends -- Dona Aida, with Your Permission -- Have Typewriter, Will Travel -- A Vermont Writer from the Dominican Republic -- Chasing the Butterflies -- Goodbye, Ms. Chips -- In the Name of the Novel -- Ten of My Writing Commandments -- Grounds for Fiction -- Writing Matters.
ISBN: 1565121937

1. Alvarez, Julia -- Authorship. 2. Dominican Americans in literature. 3. Dominican Americans -- Intellectual life. 4. Dominican Republic -- In literature. 5. Women and literature -- United States --History --20th century.

814.54

This thoughtful and illuminating collection of essays by the self-described “Vermont Writer from the Dominican Republic” is divided into two groups the first, “Customs” are memories of growing up in the Dominican Republic under the last years of the Trujillo dictatorship, her family’s escape to New York, and the difficulties of assimilating into a not altogether welcoming foreign Anglo culture. The second part, “Declarations,” collects her thoughts on writing, how she turns her experiences and imaginings into poems, novels and essays. One, “Goodbye, Ms. Chips,” is about her difficult choice between the vocations of writer and teacher.

I know why the caged bird sings

I know why the caged bird sings / Maya Angelou.—New York: Random House [1970, c1969]
281 p. ; 22 cm.
Autobiography.

1. African American authors --Biography. 2. African American families. 3. African American women --Biography. 4. Angelou, Maya --Childhood and youth. 5. Authors, American --20th century --Biography. 6. Entertainers --United States --Biography.

818.5409

With the remembered perceptions of a child and the skill of a mature artist Civil Rights activist, poet and performer Maya Angelou recounts her childhood in what has become a modern classic of autobiography. Its honesty and command of the language should not be missed.

“When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed—“To Whom It May Concern”—that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson.”

The owner of the Wm. Johnson General Merchandise Store in Stamps, Annie Henderson, her grandmother, became Momma for Marguerite and her brother. It was her brother Bailey who in his toddler tongue claimed her as “Maya” (my) sister. The store was the gathering place for the African American workers on their way to and from their day’s work in the cotton fields. It was there that she learned her mathematics at the cash register and there that she and her brother learned to read and love reading, and there that they discovered that alien race with their strange and unfriendly ways that lived in the other side of town, “whitefolks.”

But her childhood in the rural South with its church revivals, community fish fries, and first friends was interrupted suddenly when their father showed up unexpectedly and told them they were going to come with him to live in California. More unexpectedly he took them and delivered them not to California, but to St. Louis. With its strange foods, doorbells, flush toilets and noisy automobiles, St. Louis was like a foreign county. It was a foreign country where their glamorous and beautiful mother lived with her family. Momma, their Johnson grandmother was a pious woman of character who feared no man but God. By contrast Grandmother Baxter was a political force in the city with influence over the police, and feared no man.

Political power, however was no protection against domestic danger. Eight-year-old Marguerite was molested by her mother’s boyfriend. The trauma sent her into silence and depression and back to Arkansas. There the regard of the educated Mrs. Flowers who encouraged her reading and plied her with tea and cooking gave her back her voice.

Her next move out of Arkansas with her brother was to California; to San Francisco where her mother now lived and one unfortunate summer visiting her father and his new girlfriend in southern California. After a falling out she spent a month homeless before returning to San Francisco. There, during the Second World War, she attended high school, through dogged perseverance became the first black conductor on the streetcars, and had a son.

Six days of war

Six days of war: [June 1967 and the making of the modern Middle East] / Michael B. Oren ; read by Robert Whitfield. -- [Ashland] : Blackstone Audio ; [Boulder] : NetLibrary, 2006.
1 sound file (18 hr., 1 min.) : digital, wma file (259029 KB)
First published by Oxford University, 2002, Blackstone Audio edition, 2003, NetLibrary edition, 2006
Mode of access: World Wide Web
ISBN: 9780786152384 (electronic audio bk.)

1. Israel-Arab War, 1967.

956.046

Although Oren’s masterful narrative concentrates on the 1967 war between Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria he is careful to put the war in the context of conflicts that erupted in 1948, 1956 and continued after the June 1967, conflicts that continue to this day. In addition to the actual fighting he gives a comprehensive diplomatic history on the events that led up to the war. He includes all of the participants: Arab, Israeli, Soviet, American, the United Nations and their leaders, the internal political conflicts within each, how the involvement of the American military in Vietnam and the Egyptian military in Yemen constrained their governments. Of nerve-wracking concern for Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was how the outbreak of hostilities would be perceived by the United Nations, the Cold War superpowers, and their allies. There were also tensions between each head of state and his generals who, on both sides, were pleading to be allowed to launch the first preemptive strike against the enemy. Oren, an Israeli army veteran, did extensive research for his book using now declassified documents from all the major participants with the exception of Syria and personal reminisces of participants on both sides to produce his comprehensive and fascinating history.

Rites of peace

Rites of peace : the fall of Napoleon & the Congress of Vienna / Adam Zamoyski .— New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
xviii, 634 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. (some col.), maps ; 25 cm.
ISBN: 9780060775186 (hbk.)
Includes bibliographical references (p. 599-617) and index.

1. Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) 2. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Peace. 3. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Diplomatic history. 4. Europe -- History -- 1789-1815.

940.2714

For two decades the scourge of the ancien régime Napoleon Bonaparte had been the fear and master of the crowned heads of Europe, but his attempt to add Russia to his list of conquests proved the beginning of his downfall. In December 1812 he was forced back to Paris in advance of his retreating army by the Russians, who as they advanced across Europe, turned his former allies Prussia, Austria, and the other German states into theirs. In April 1813 the allied armies joined by England and several exiled kings arrived in Paris and forced Napoleon’s surrender. But months before the question of how to undo what revolutionary and then imperial France had done to Europe occupied the minds of the kings and their diplomats as much as defeating the French army.

Following victory parades and triumphal visits they convened in the Austrian capital in 1814 to work out the details of the peace. They were filled with a hope for a lasting peace and the new ideal of international law. They even invited the defeated power, France, represented by newly restored monarchy to attend the Congress. Ironically the French ambassador, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, had previously done the same job for the last French ruler, Napoleon. The Congress with its multiple attending sovereigns immediately became the new center of European diplomacy and social life, compete with accompanying diversions. As the author puts it,

“Perhaps the most striking aspect of the great charade known as the Congress of Vienna is the continuous interplay between the serious and the frivolous, an almost parasitical co-existence of activities which might appear to be mutually exclusive. The rattling of sabres and talk of blood mingled with the strains of the waltz and court gossip, and the most ridiculously trivial pursuits went hand in hand with impressive work.” Page 385

Zamoyski has plowed though voluminous official archives and memoirs of the participants to give a detailed, highly readable, account of the preparation for and the proceedings of the Congress, both official and social, followed by his own assessment of what it accomplished: consultation and cooperation between multiple states, what we would now call a Summit Meeting, as a means of resolving an international crisis, and what it failed to accomplish: a permanent peace and stable boundaries.

Batman : Hush / Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Scott Williams

Batman : Hush / Jeph Loeb, writer; Jim Lee, penciller; Scott Williams, inker; Richard Starkings, letterer; Alex Sinclair, colorist.—New York : DC Comics, 2003.
2 v. (320 p.): col. ill. ; 26 cm.
ISBN: 9781401200602 (v.1) 9781401200923 (v.2)
Originally published in single magazine form as Batman 608-619 in 2002-2003
Volume 1 128 p.+ Volume 2 [192] p.

1. Batman (Fictitious character) – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Catwoman (Fictitious character) – Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

A conspiracy of villains, occasional allies, old acquaintances, and romantic interests seem bent on finally doing in the Batman. And to further confuse things, they appear to keep switching sides, so it becomes difficult to tell friend from foe.

Picture and plot are carefully, artistically composed to display the vitality of about two dozen of DC’s characters as they parade through the story. The series is also drawn, inked and colored in exquisite detail.

Usagi Yojimbo : Book 3: The Wanderer's Road

Usagi Yojimbo : Book 3: The Wanderer's Road / Stan Sakai.—Seattle : Fantagraphics Books, 1989.
146 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
ISBN: 9781560970095
"The stories in this volume originally appeared in Usagi Yojimbo # 7-12 and Turtle Soup"

1. Rabbits – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Samurai – Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

In his wandering, ronin Miyamoto Usagi rescues and then acquires a pet lizard. His next encounters with the mother of an evil son, another ronin that he has blinded, and a bizarre character who’s convinced that he’s been sent by the gods to kill evildoers, are more harrowing. His next adventures, involving the safe delivery and then the rescuing of two precious items have more satisfactory endings for the samurai. Sakai’s art and storytelling are of consistently high quality in this collection.

The return of the native

The return of the native / Thomas Hardy; narrated by Alan Rickman. -- North Kingston: BBC Audiobooks America, 1985.
13 sound discs (15 hr., 45 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
ISBN: 9781572705708
(Cover to Cover)
This recording was first published in 1985 by Audio Partners, Auburn, California
Unabridged

823.8

1. Country life -- England -- Wessex -- Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. 3. England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction. 4. Man-woman relationships. 5. Married people -- England -- Wessex -- Fiction. 6. Pastoral fiction. 7. Wessex (England) -- Fiction. 8. Young women -- England -- Wessex -- Fiction.


Egdon Heath is a sparsely settled wilderness in the southwest of England. It’s dominated by the wind, the sky and the feral vegetation of fern and furze. It is, as the author introduces it in the first chapter, “a face on which time has made but little impression.” To its native inhabitants it’s a quiet county refuge from the bustle and commotion of the mid-nineteenth century, but to young Eustacia Vye it’s a wilderness of exile from civilized life from which she has little hope of escape. Damon Wildeve, her former boyfriend and owner of the local inn is about to marry Tamsin Yeobright, a pleasing and innocent girl from a good family, and Eustacia is suffering bitter pangs of envy and jealousy. Damon wasn’t all that much of a catch, but emotional entanglement with him was her only source of relief from the tedium of county life. And then she hears that Tamsin’s cousin is coming for a visit. He’s a clever and promising young man, a diamond trader who lives in Paris – Paris the heart of civilization, culture and beauty. But how will she manage a visit to the home of her rival? Eustacia begins to scheme.

The characters carry their passions, pride and false assumptions about the motives of their fellows with them as they criss-cross the heath, but ultimately human plans are overwhelmed by the geographies of heath, history, and social convention. But in this reading is of the final, 1912, edition of the novel, only one is able to fulfill his desire. Architect turned novelist Hardy constructs a realistic masterpiece of beautiful and brooding tragedy. And for the listener, the combination of Hardy’s prose and Rickman’s voice is a rich and sensual delight.

A history of Ancient Israel from the Patriarchs through the Romans

A history of Ancient Israel from the Patriarchs through the Romans / Eric H. Cline.-- Prince Frederick : Recorded Books, 2006.
7 sound discs (7 hr., 37 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. + Includes: 1 course guide (96 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.)
(The Modern scholar)
Compact discs
Course guide includes bibliographical references
ISBN: 1419388711 (set); 141938872X (course guide)
Contents: Lecture 1.; Abraham and the patriarchs --; Lecture 2.; The Exodus and Egypt --; Lecture 3.; The conquest of Canaan: Israelites, Philistines, and Phoenicians --; Lecture 4.; King David in history and tradition --; Lecture 5.; King Solomon in history and tradition --; Lecture 6.; Excursus: the Ark of the Covenant --; Lecture 7.; The kingdom of Israel and the Omride dynasty --; Lecture 8.; The kingdom of Judah until the time of Sennacherib --; Lecture 9.; Neo-Babylonians and the end of the kingdom of Judah --; Lecture 10.; Persians and Greeks in Judea --; Lecture 11.; The coming of the Romans and Christianity --; Lecture 12.; Excursus: Qumran and the Dead Sea scrolls --; Lecture 13.; From the first Jewish revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem to Bar Kochba and the second Jewish rebellion --; Lecture 14.; Excursus: Masada, what really happened?

1. Israel -- History.

933

This is part of the Recorded Books Modern Scholar Series, each set is a series of fourteen lectures by a college or university professor and a study guide that summarizes the material and presents a bibliography of material for further study. There are also online examinations and forums for the subjects. This course is presented by Eric Cline, a professor of Anthropology and Classical and Semitic Languages and Literatures at the George Washington University and the author of several books on ancient battles and civilizations.

It was a surprise for me to learn how little archeological evidence exists for Kings David and Solomon and how much there is for the Omride dynasty in Israel. There are remains of great building projects by Kings Omri and Ahab such as the city of Samaria and only a single stele left that mentions the House of David. It was also interesting to lean how many battles have already taken place before Megiddo (Armageddon) and how many times Jerusalem has been besieged. This was a very informative series of lectures, helpfully illustrated with the accompanying study guide.

Minders of make-believe

Minders of make-believe : idealists, entrepreneurs, and the shaping of American children’s literature / Leonard S. Marcus.-- Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
xi, 402 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9780395674079
Contents: Providence and purpose in Colonial America and the young republic -- Wonder in the wake of war : publishing for the children from the gilded age to the dawn of the new century -- Innocence lost and found : the 1920s -- Sisters in crisis and in conflict : the 1930s -- World War and mass market : the 1940s -- Fun and fear : the 1950s -- Shaken and stirred : the 1960s -- Change and more change : the 1970s -- Suits and wizards at the millennium’s gate. Includes bibliographical references (p. 322-369) and index.

1. Children --Books and reading --United States --History. 2. Children’s books --United States --History. 3. Children’s literature --Publishing --United States --History.

070.5083

Marcus has written a very interesting history of publishing English books for children in the United States from the 1690 New England Primer to the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in July 2000. The twentieth century, when publishers first appointed knowledgeable women editors to begin and run specialized children’s imprints, gets the most coverage. As the subtitle advertises, the debates in the field supply the story’s plot: should books for children be educational or entertaining, truth or fiction, draw upon folktales or the daily sensations of children in their new modern environment, is our business literature or commerce, and is children’s literature really literature at all? The characters, and there are some characters, are supplied by the publishers, editors, librarians, and educators who wrestle with these issues and the economic necessity of keeping their enterprises afloat.

Masterpieces of medieval literature

Masterpieces of medieval literature / Timothy B. Shutt.— Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, 2005.
7 sound discs (7 hr., 54 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 course guide (72 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.)
(Modern scholar)
ISBN: 1419377892; 1419377906 (course guide)
14 lectures delivered by Timothy B. Shutt, Professor, Kenyon College.
Contents: Historical background – The Germanic north – The Icelandic family sagas – Njal’s Saga – Anglo-Saxon attitudes – Beowulf – Anglo-Saxon poetry – The Celtic west: The lais of Marie de France – To the sunny southlands: troubadour poetry, chivalry, knighthood, and the Chanson de Geste – The matter of Arthur – Chrétien de Troyes – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Religious literature – The later middle ages.
Compact disc

1. Literature, Medieval -- History and criticism.

809.02

Fourteen lectures and a study guide comprise this lively survey of the outstanding examples of European literature from the sack of Rome to the first stirrings of the Renaissance in Italy. Shutt starts with the new influences coming from the North: the poems and sagas of the Germans and the Celts and then moves counter-clockwise geographically as he moves forward in time. He examines Icelandic sagas, Beowulf, and then the merging of the Northern and Mediterranean traditions in troubadour poetry and in the stories of Arthur: The lais of Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, before surveying religious literature and the impact of the calamities of the 1300s: global (or at least European) cooling and the black death.

What Professor Shutt may lack in rhetorical delivery—he often pauses mid-sentence as if lost in contemplation of his subject—he more than compensates for with his enthusiasm for, as well as his knowledge of, the literature. The accompanying text, the study guide edited by James Gallagher, not only reinforces the lessons of the lectures, but provides a marvelous bibliography of the works discussed in modern English translations.

Personally, it left me with the reader’s lament, “So many books. So little time.”

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian / by Sherman Alexie ; art by Ellen Forney.— New York : Little, Brown, c2007.
229 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 9780316013680

1. Basketball – Fiction. 2. Children of alcoholics – Fiction. 3. Indian reservations -- Fiction. 4. Indians of North America -- Washington (State) -- Fiction. 5. Race relations – Fiction. 6. Spokane Indians -- Fiction.

813.54










The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian / written and narrated by Sherman Alexie.— Prince Frederick : Recorded Books, 2008.
5 sound discs (5 hrs.)
Compact discs
ISBN: 9781428182974 (Library edition)

1. Basketball – Fiction. 2. Children of alcoholics – Fiction. 3. Indian reservations -- Fiction. 4. Indians of North America -- Washington (State) -- Fiction. 5. Race relations – Fiction. 6. Spokane Indians -- Fiction.

813.54


Arnold Spirit, Junior is a hydrocephalic Spokane Indian attending an otherwise all-white high school off the reservation. He tells his story in the first person and in cartoons; it’s by turns tragic and comic, but even when Arnold (his name at school) or Junior (his name back on the reservation) boils over with frustration at his Indian friends who reject him for attending the town high school or at his white classmates can’t accept him for being an Indian, he never abandons his sharp wit and irony. This makes a story, peppered with the pain of racism, death, poverty, and alcoholism, one of triumph and good humor, and not one of maudlin sorrow.

Forney’s illustrations in the print edition reinforce the humor in the text, but the author’s narration on the audio edition turn a superior piece of fiction into an unqualified masterpiece.

Messenger

Messenger / Lois Lowry. – Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
169 p. ; 22 cm.
Sequel to: The Giver and Gathering Blue

ISBN: 0618404414

1. Community life -- Fiction. 2. Emigration and immigration -- Fiction. 3. Fantasy fiction. 4. Good and evil – Fiction. 5. Healers -- Fiction.

813.54


Matty was a wild and untamed boy when he came to Village, but now that he’s grown some he’s become a useful member of his community. He is the messenger sent through the often dangerous Forest to other communities by Leader. But things have changed in Village recently, the people fear that they may not have enough to share with new arrivals, and they decide to build a wall around it to keep strangers out.

Lowry presents a simple and powerful fable of how greed and fear can warp and poison a community, to make it forget what it once knew, and how self-sacrifice can redeem it.

Angels Fall

Angels fall / by Nora Roberts; read by Joyce Bean.— Grand Haven: Brilliance Audio, 2006.
13 sound discs (ca. 15 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Directed by Laura Grafton.
ISBN: 1596001917 (library ed.)

1. Romantic suspense fiction. 2. Victims of crimes -- Fiction. 3. Wyoming --Fiction.

813.54

Escaping from lingering obsessive memories of a brutal and senseless mass murder in Boston, chef Reece Gilmore finds herself applying for the job of cook at a local diner in Angel’s Fist Wyoming. The menu and the kitchen are not quite what she’s trained for, but the calm scenery of the Grand Tetons make up for what the diner may be lacking. But as soon as she plans to settle in and take a relaxing hike to enjoy the scenery she witnesses a woman strangled to death on a lonely trail. But when she reports this to the local police they find no trace of the crime. Then strange and threatening things start happening in her apartment

A master of her craft, Roberts delivers both sensuality and suspense in this tale. The sensuality is not limited to the romantic encounters of Reece and her new lover, but also in the details of the food and the beauty of the land, and the thrills come from threats both psychological and physical.

The midnight ride of Paul Revere

The midnight ride of Paul Revere / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; graved and painted by Christopher Bing.— Brooklyn, N.Y. : Handprint Books, c2001.
[34] p. + 2 sheets folded and tipped in front and back of book : col. ill., maps ; 24 x 30 cm.
Bibliography: p. [29]
ISBN: 1929766130

1. American poetry. 2. Lexington, Battle of, Lexington, Mass., 1775 --Poetry. 3. Narrative poetry. 4. Revere, Paul, 1735-1818 --Poetry.

811.3

“A Note on the Preparation of This Book” explicates the meaning of “graved and painted.” It’s an impressive mixture of drawing, painting, computer photography, and image manipulation. Paired with the use of a typeface that’s contemporary with the events, it gives the book a feeling of historical verisimilitude. In addition to beautifully illustrating Longfellow’s famous poem, Bing includes a brief historically accurate account of Revere’s well organized network of riders and what really happened on the night of April 18-19, 1775. A copy of Revere’s own deposition to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress is also included. This is an excellent presentation of the poem.

Doctor Who : Peacemaker

Doctor Who : Peacemaker / James Swallow; read by Will Thorp.— [Bath:] BBC Audiobooks, 2008.

1 audio file (31088 KB) : (2 hr., 9 min.)
Downloadable audio file
Requires OverDrive Media Console
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Doctor Who (Television program : 2005- )
ISBN: 9781408499092 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)

1. Doctor Who (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. 2. Healers -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction. 3. Science fiction. 4. Space and time – Fiction. 5. Western stories.

823.92

The Doctor and Martha Jones materialize in the Wild West, although the Doctor cautions Marsha that it’s not called that yet. The town of Redwater is being terrorized by two zombie desperados with some very potent lightning spouting side arms. They demand the whereabouts of a snake oil salesman that passed through recently. The extraordinary thing about his medicine was that it really worked. It cured many in town of the smallpox. Anxiety and horrific nightmares are, however, common side effects.

Perhaps more extraordinary is that this science fiction western with zombies, alien invaders, and blazing ray guns is quite entertaining. The author pulls it off very smoothly, and Thorpe’s narration keeps pace with the plot. And, if his American accents are not completely convincing, they are all distinctive and amusing.

Little Women

Little women / Louisa May Alcott; read by Sandra Burr.— Grand Haven : Brilliance Audio, 1998.
16 sound discs (18 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Directed by Laura Grafton
Compact discs
ISBN: 9781597371384

1. Autobiographical fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. 3. Family – Fiction. 4. March family (Fictitious characters) – Fiction. 5. New England – Fiction. 6. Sisters – Fiction.

813.4

The March sisters grow from children to young adults in genteel poverty next to their wealthy next door neighbors. The setting is Massachusetts during the Civil War. The distinctive character of the four sisters, their parents, and the domestic setting are drawn largely from the author’s own life. Little Women has been a popular and critical success since its publication in 1868-1869, and Burr’s clear and spritely narration makes this edition a pleasant one.

The wall : growing up behind the Iron Curtain

The wall : growing up behind the Iron Curtain / Peter Sís. -- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2007.
[52] pages : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.) ; 32 cm.
1st ed.
"Frances Foster books"--Title page.
Maps on endpapers.
ISBN: 9780374347017 (hc.)

1. Authors, American -- 20th century – Biography. 2. Czech Americans – Biography. 3. Czechoslovakia -- History -- 1945-1992. 4. Czechoslovakia -- Social conditions -- 1945-1992. 5. Illustrators -- United States – Biography. 6. Sís, Peter, 1949- -- Childhood and youth

741.642092

In words and drawings Sís reminisces about his childhood and youth in communist controlled Czechoslovakia. “As long as he could remember, he had loved to draw.” As an infant and child at home in Prague he was free to draw whatever he wanted, but when he went to school he was told what to draw and what to think. “Looking back, I can see how easy it is to brainwash a child. We were like sheep … until music from the free world—rock ‘n’ roll and the Beatles—made a crack in the wall.” As a youth during the Prague Spring he became part of a rock group and a radio disc jockey until the Russian tanks moved in and the government began to watch and question everybody. In Los Angeles in 1984 he had a chance to defect and he took it. “Now when my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion, and lies…”

The Daleks’ master plan

The Daleks’ master plan / Terry Nation, Dennis Spooner.— [Wiltshire] : BBC Worldwide Ltd., 2001.

5 sound discs (6 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet.
(Doctor Who (Television program : 1963-1989))

At head of title: Doctor Who
Contents: Mission to the Unknown – The Nightmare Begins -- Day of Armageddon – Devil's Planet – The Traitors – Counter Plot –Coronas of the Sun -- The Feast of Steven – Volcano – Golden Death – Escape Switch – The Abandoned Planet – Destruction of Time
Booklet includes full track listing, production notes and photos.
First broadcast between November 1965 and January 1966
Variant titles: The Dalek’s master plan, The Daleks Master Plan, The Dalek Master Plan.
Full cast dramatization, connecting narration by Peter Purves
Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Peter Purves (Steven Taylor), Adrienne Hill (Katarina), Jean Marsh (Sara Kingdom), Kevin Stoney (Mavic Chen), Peter Butterworth (The Meddling Monk), Nicholas Courtney (Bret Vyon)
Compact discs
ISBN: 9780563535003

1. Doctor Who (Fictitious character) -- Drama. 2. Life on other planets -- Drama. 3. Science fiction television programs--Great Britain. 4. Time travel -- Drama.

791.4561

“We at this table pledge our allegiance to the Dalek cause. Our armies will reduce the galaxies to ashes, their people to dust. And Earth we will conquer first!”

On the planet Kembel in the 41st century, the Doctor and the agents of the solar system’s Space Security Service come across a fully formed plan to conquer the Milky Way, organized by the Daleks. And right in the midst of the plot is the Guardian of the Solar System, Mavic Chen. The head of the government is giving not only comfort to the enemy, but aid as well in the form of taranium, a rare substance found only on Uranus. It’s needed to power the Daleks’ ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor! When the Doctor snatches the taranium and takes off, it begins an epic chase through space and time: to the penal planet Desperus, to Mira with invisible eight-foot tall unfriendly inhabitants, to a volcanic planet, and to Earth in the 41st and 20th centuries and Egypt during the Fourth Dynasty. In the midst of this extended chase another Nemesis in the form of the time-meddler shows up still in his monk’s robes from 1066 to fiddle around with the history of the 41st century.

According to the Doctor Who Wikia, “Only Day of Armageddon (Episode 2), Counter Plot (Episode 5) and Escape Switch (Episode 10) survive on 16mm film telerecordings.” This audio adaptation uses the soundtrack connected by narrative done by Peter Purves who plays Steven in the original show. It’s quite an entertaining romp through space-time.

iHCPL Potluck #56 To Tweet or Not To Tweet...Twitter

Exercises1) Browse a couple of different Twitter profiles (news, fashion, celebrities) and read through a few updates. Do you think this is something you would adopt for personal use? Is there a particular topic you'd like to tweet about?

When I signed up for account earlier in the month for this exercise, I started to follow NPR newscaster Scott Simon, but I gave it up because the finished product was so much better on the radio. I also thought that it would be useful to follow the library to stay up to date with what’s happening. But, at first couldn't find HCPL because I searched under "Harris County Public Library" for tweets and not "harriscountypl." Once I found harriscountypl I also found other people and institutions to follow. I now get lots of tweets from the New York Times. So far, I've found it easier to scan and pick out what I want to read than RSS feed on my aggregator. I was tempted by, but held back on following NPR, because I listen to their news every morning on the radio. I changed my background to multiple portraits of Hypatia, daughter of the mathematician Teone and wife of the philosopher Isodoro, and most importantly the librarian of Alexandria (LCSH: Hypatia, d. 415)

2) Use the search feature to find tweets about a topic that interests you. What were the results?

The results were that I found out that MorganBaden in New York was "… reading Walter Dean Myers' Arbuthnot lecture delivered last w/e, and it is rocking my world." I want to know how she got a copy "about 20 hours ago" to read! Her bio leads me to think that she might be a journalist.

3) Post your thoughts about Twitter to your blog. For help navigating through Twitter, see their support page.

While my thoughts are still, who would want to know what I'm doing all the time (except maybe my boss during the day to be sure that I was working and not twittering away my time)? I realized that I had the identical thought about starting a blog, and now I post to my blog regularly because I enjoy writing, and I don't care if it's true that "Never before have so many said so much to so few." So, I’m going to keep twittering for a few more months, before I decide to give it up or continue.

Walter Dean Myers on “The Geography of the Heart”

This past Saturday I had the good fortunate to attend the Arbuthnot Lecture given at the Alex Haley farm in Clinton, Tennessee. The well known and highly regarded author for young adults and children, Walter Dean Myers spoke on “The Geography of the Heart.”

As a member of the 2009 Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children, I was eagerly anticipating the lecture. The five-member committees—I say committees in the plural because there are several committees at work at the same time in different stages of their responsibilities—spend two years in the process of naming a lecturer and selecting a site for the lecture. Our committee, chaired by Amy Kellman, first met in Washington at the American Library Association Conference on June 23, 2007. We all brought suggestions for possible lecturers, but after discussion we came to a consensus well before our midwinter deadline. The next major decision was on June 28, 2008, at the Annual Conference in Anaheim; we reviewed the applications from institutions wanting to host the lecture. Although there were several outstanding possible sites, the match of Myers with the tenth anniversary celebration of the Langston Hughes Library at the Children’s Defense Fund’s Alex Hailey farm proved providential.

I set off for Tennessee with an exhilarating exhibition of Gulf Coast weather. The rain coming sideways at the terminal windows in Hobby Airport made the light outside turn green. As a result my afternoon flight wasn’t able to leave the ground until 9:30 in the evening. It’s a good thing I brought along a good book to read. I flew into Nashville and drove to Oak Ridge, which according to Tennessee folklore is the home of glow-in-the-dark frogs. I arrived at about 4:30 the next morning, napped, and went on to the lecture in Clinton.

April is a perfect time to be in Tennessee; the redbuds and dogwoods were all in bloom; the first signs of greenery were reappearing on the trees in the Smoky Mountains; the Canada geese were gliding along in the creek, and the sun was shining. I offer my condolences to those of you who spent the day in the dark and heavy rain back in Harris County. Signing in at the farm, I ran into a half-dozen of my former colleagues from the Nashville Public Library, and had a chance to visit with them and eat lunch with them before the program began. Then we all went in to the huge white tent in the sun and waited. Thankfully there was a cool breeze that blew through one side and across the hundreds in the audience.

At noon there was a panel discussion, “Trends and issues in Contemporary Children’s and Young Adult Literature” by members of the Langston Hughes Library Board. Since the library is a research institution focusing on books written or illustrated by African Americans or books about the African American experience, the panel was made up of African American academics, authors, publishers and librarians. Before getting down to the trends and issues, one member Effie Lee Morris, the retired Coordination of Children’s Services for the San Francisco Public Library reminisced about studying under May Hill Arbuthnot, “She looked prim, but she wasn’t. Her classes in children’s literature were lively. Her focus was on the children first and then the books.”

The trend the participants noticed was the “Street Literature” now flooding the market. Much of it was originally self-published. Wade Hudson, the publisher of Just Us Books, said that librarians needed to measure the new street lit against the works of Walter Dean Myers, Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon Draper, or Sharon G. Flake, authors that realistically portray the African American experience and, at the same time, know that out of this experience they have a message to pass on that is not measured by the number of books that they sell.

After the discussion we were welcomed to the lecture by Marian Wright Edelman, the President of the Children’s Defense Fund, Sheadrick Tillman, the Haley Farm Managing Director, and Pat Scales, ALSC President. Arbuthnot Chair Amy Kellman introduced Walter Dean Myers as a real mensch.

Myers noted that he’d been around for such a long time that he knew both Alex Haley and Langston Hughes. He said, “I love to write. What I do is write books for the troubled boy that I once was. My life is no different from any avid reader. As someone who is now at peace with himself, I can reflect on what worked and what didn’t in my life, and reading did.”

He recalled how his mother read to him from true romance magazines, and then after sitting in her lap and following the words he realized that he too could read them, she had him read them aloud to her. Reading gave him “an imagined universe that was both transitory and real.” He did not understand why some of the other boys in his Harlem neighborhood, didn’t “want to read no book.” Eventually he came to realize that they had different “geographies of the heart.” His were the assumptions of the larger culture that reading would get you ahead of life. His friends assumptions were that reading would not change their lives or their situation.. It would not lift them out of poverty or give them the self-esteem and recognition that they craved. It was a mental geography without hope.

He concluded, “Hope is not wishful thinking. It is the re-creation of our society. What my ancestors did, but in a new and better way. And while we can’t force or project our geography on others, we should give them stories to give them hope.”

Now, I am eagerly anticipating the publication of the lecture in the upcoming issue of Children and Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children.

Postscript: It's printed in the Winter 2009 issue on pages 8-16, 26.

Hoops

Hoops / Walter Dean Myers.—New York : Laurel Leaf, 2008, c1981.
183 p. ; 18 cm.
“Based on an original screenplay by John Ballard with additional material by Dennis Watlington.”
ISBN: 9780440938842

1. African Americans – Fiction. 2. Basketball – Fiction. 3. Basketball Betting – Fiction. 4. Harlem (New York, N.Y.) – Fiction.

Lonnie Jackson remembers one of the things that his father said before he split was that “his days were piling up on him.” At seventeen Lonnie is starting to feel the same way. Then one evening he goes over to the playground to shoot some baskets and he trips over a wino lying in the middle of the court. He doesn’t know it at the time, but he’s just met his future coach.

Myers expertly delivers fast paced basketball action, suspense, crime, and a touch of romance in this realistic forerunner to urban street lit.

Wanda Gág

Wanda Gág : the girl who lived to draw / Deborah Kogan Ray.—New York : Viking, 2008.

[40] p. : col. ill. ; 24 x 27 cm.

At head of title: “The Creator of Millions of Cats”

Audience: Ages 5 up.

Bibliography: p. 40

ISBN: 9780670062928

1. Artists – United States – Biography. 2. Gág, Wanda, 1893-1946. 3. Illustrators -- United States -- Biography.

741.642092

Born to Bohemian parents in Minnesota all the Gag (rhymes with jog, not bag) children were encouraged to actively pursue both the fine and performing arts. Their father, a house painter by trade, was also a painter of pictures and on his deathbed he gave his oldest daughter this commission, “What Papa couldn’t do, Wanda will have to finish.” Starting at age fifteen Wanda began to support the family through the sale of her art. On scholarships she went on to study art in St. Paul and at the Art Students League in New York. At a one-woman show in New York in 1928, she was approached by a children’s book editor, who asked if she had ever considered writing a story. In fact, she had one already written, inspired by the German folktales that she loved as a child. It was called Millions of Cats.

Ray’s gentle and vividly colorful illustrations enliven her picture book biography of her fellow artist.

Doctor Who: The Forever Trap

Doctor Who: the forever trap / Dan Abnett ; read by Catherine Tate.-- [Bath] : BBC Audiobooks, 2008.
2 sound discs (2 hr., 23 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Compact discs
Produced by Kate Thomas ; series theme music by Murray Gold ; music and sound effects performed by Simon Hunt.
ISBN: 9781408406786

1. Apartment houses – Fiction. 2. Doctor Who (Fictitious character) – Fiction. 3. Dwellings – Fiction. 4. Human-alien encounters – Fiction. 5. Outer space – Fiction. 6. Science fiction.

823.914

A smooth talking and not entirely honest sales-hologram invades the TARDIS and tricks Donna Noble into a sales contract for a luxury apartment complex. If location is all three of the most important things in real estate, then the Edifice doesn’t have any of them. It’s somewhere in the midst of Outer Space, without any means of transportation out. Not only that, new tenants keep arriving without any provision for what they need to survive. Aquatic life forms are dumped on the carpet with nothing for their gills to breathe. Some of the more aggressive tenants are fighting for control of the Edifice, and no one seems to be in charge. Fortunately, there is a Doctor in the house.

Catherine Tate is such a gifted actress and mimic that her single voice presentation sounds like the highest quality full-cast radio drama. As the actress who plays Donna in the television series, it is little wonder that she does a good job voicing Donna’s part. The wonderful part of her performance is how closely she has captured fellow actor David Tennant's speech patterns when she reads the Doctor’s part. The sound effects are also excellent, and Dan Abnett’s original story even has a cliffhanger between discs one and two. Everyone involved with this project is to be commended.

The metamorphosis

The metamorphosis / Franz Kafka; adapted by Peter Kuper.—New York : Three Rivers Press, c2003.
77 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Translation by Kerstin Hasenpusch
ISBN: 1400052998

1. Family -- Fiction. 2. Graphic novels. 3. Insects -- Fiction. 4. Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 -- Adaptations. 5. Metamorphosis—Fiction. 6. Short stories, Austrian -- 20th century.

I. Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924. Verwandlung. English. 2003.

741.5973

Traveling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a giant bug. This makes it very difficult to get out of bed and impossible to get to work. It also makes for very awkward family dynamics. Kuper’s adaptation of one of the most famous literary works of the twentieth century scrupulously follows Kafka’s original story. What Kuper adds with his dark shadings and heavy lines is a feeling of dark and claustrophobic gloom. It gives his cartoons the feeling of the work of some of Kafka’s contemporaries in the visual arts, the Expressionists. Gregor’s father looks like he could have stepped out of a drawing by George Grosz and the atmosphere of crushing suffering is reminiscent of the works of Otto Dix or Käthe Kollwitz. And while this is not the only interpretation of the story, it is certainly a valid one that Kuper illustrates very successfully.