Bishop McNamara is a Catholic, college-prep high school in Kankakee, IL. The library blog introduces new books, book reviews, book trailers, fun and interesting articles, original writing, and school and community news.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Publisher's Weekly's List : Best books of 2009
Publisher's Weekly's list includes NO women authors. Read more at the New York Times.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
New Book
800
Home : American writers remember rooms of their own / edited by Sharon S. Fiffer and Steve Fiffer
Includes stories by Sharon Fiffer; Jane Smiley; Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Esmeralda Santiago; Bailey White and others.
Home : American writers remember rooms of their own / edited by Sharon S. Fiffer and Steve Fiffer
Includes stories by Sharon Fiffer; Jane Smiley; Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Esmeralda Santiago; Bailey White and others.
Monday, November 2, 2009
New books 11/02/09
300
50 ways to help you community : a handbook for change / Steve Fiffer and Sharon Fiffer
600
The boy who harnessed the wind : creating currents of electricity and hope / William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
In poverty-stricken rural Malawi, Kamkwamba used discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and a bicycle wheel to build a windmill. For his community, “a windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom.”
(Amazon.com ; 11/02/09)
800
The Canterbury tales / Geoffrey Chaucer ; translated by David Wright
The Canterbury tales [Norton critical edition]
Fiction
Splendor : a Luxe novel / Anna Godbersen
The continuing saga of socialites, romance, and intrigue set in old New York. The fourth book in a series.
50 ways to help you community : a handbook for change / Steve Fiffer and Sharon Fiffer
600
The boy who harnessed the wind : creating currents of electricity and hope / William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
In poverty-stricken rural Malawi, Kamkwamba used discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and a bicycle wheel to build a windmill. For his community, “a windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom.”
(Amazon.com ; 11/02/09)
800
The Canterbury tales / Geoffrey Chaucer ; translated by David Wright
The Canterbury tales [Norton critical edition]
Fiction
Splendor : a Luxe novel / Anna Godbersen
The continuing saga of socialites, romance, and intrigue set in old New York. The fourth book in a series.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
One woman's junk is another's treasure
Read Sharon Fiffer's postings about yard sales and collecting on her home page.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
New Books - 10/16/09
600
We beat the street : how a friendship pact led to success / by the three doctors : Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt with Sharon M. Draper
The story of how three teenage boys from a tough neighborhood in Newark, N.J., avoided gangs and crime and encouraged and challenged each other to pursue medical degrees. (replacement copy)
700
Cathedral (DVD) / hosted by David Macaulay
Depicts the construction and design of medieval a French cathedral.
800
Half broke horses : a true-life novel / Jeannette Walls
Walls tells the story of Lily Casey Smith, her spirited maternal grandmother. Smith was a teacher, horse-breaker, rancher, and ruthless poker player. (by the author of The Glass Castle).
The surrender tree : Poems of Cuba’s struggle for freedom / Margarita Engle
Engle’s poems construct a narrative woven around Cuba’s Wars for Independence, 1850-1899. The poems are narrated by Rosa, a freed slave and healer; Teniente Muerte or Lieutenant Death, son of a slave hunter ; Jose, Rosa’s husband; and Silvia, an escapee from a Cuban reconcentration camp.
Biography
Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger’s / John E. Robison
Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at age forty, Robison tells the painful story of longing to connect with other people. As a child, his quirky behavior marked his as a social deviant. As a middle-school student, he discovered a gift for repairing machines and circuitry; he now owns a successful company dedicated to repairing and restoring high-end European cars. “In the end, Robison succeeds in his goal of helping those who are struggling to grow up or live with Asperger's to see how it is not a disease but a way of being that needs no cure except understanding and encouragement from others.”(Amazon.com ; 10/16/09)
Fiction
Does my head look big in this? / Randa Abdel-Fattah
Sixteen year old Amal is an Australian-born, Muslim Palestinian. A typical teenager, she is also serious about her Muslim faith and decides to wear a hijab, the traditional Muslim headdress. A funny, heart-warming book that addresses issues of faith, culture and values.
And another thing : Douglas Adams’s hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy : part six of three / Eoin Colfer
“The rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.” (Amazon.com ; 10/19/09)
We beat the street : how a friendship pact led to success / by the three doctors : Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt with Sharon M. Draper
The story of how three teenage boys from a tough neighborhood in Newark, N.J., avoided gangs and crime and encouraged and challenged each other to pursue medical degrees. (replacement copy)
700
Cathedral (DVD) / hosted by David Macaulay
Depicts the construction and design of medieval a French cathedral.
800
Half broke horses : a true-life novel / Jeannette Walls
Walls tells the story of Lily Casey Smith, her spirited maternal grandmother. Smith was a teacher, horse-breaker, rancher, and ruthless poker player. (by the author of The Glass Castle).
The surrender tree : Poems of Cuba’s struggle for freedom / Margarita Engle
Engle’s poems construct a narrative woven around Cuba’s Wars for Independence, 1850-1899. The poems are narrated by Rosa, a freed slave and healer; Teniente Muerte or Lieutenant Death, son of a slave hunter ; Jose, Rosa’s husband; and Silvia, an escapee from a Cuban reconcentration camp.
Biography
Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger’s / John E. Robison
Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at age forty, Robison tells the painful story of longing to connect with other people. As a child, his quirky behavior marked his as a social deviant. As a middle-school student, he discovered a gift for repairing machines and circuitry; he now owns a successful company dedicated to repairing and restoring high-end European cars. “In the end, Robison succeeds in his goal of helping those who are struggling to grow up or live with Asperger's to see how it is not a disease but a way of being that needs no cure except understanding and encouragement from others.”(Amazon.com ; 10/16/09)
Fiction
Does my head look big in this? / Randa Abdel-Fattah
Sixteen year old Amal is an Australian-born, Muslim Palestinian. A typical teenager, she is also serious about her Muslim faith and decides to wear a hijab, the traditional Muslim headdress. A funny, heart-warming book that addresses issues of faith, culture and values.
And another thing : Douglas Adams’s hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy : part six of three / Eoin Colfer
“The rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.” (Amazon.com ; 10/19/09)
New Library Books - 10/21/09
Fiction
The good guy / Dean Koontz
Tim Carrier, an unassuming stone mason, is mistaken for a hit man. A stranger slips him an envelope containing $10,000 and a photo of the intended victim and leaves. Moments later, the real hit man arrives and assumes Tim is his client. Tim pays the hit man for his trouble but tells him he’s changed his mind. This ploy buys Tim enough time to warn the victim and help her flee for her life.
Gym candy / Carl Deuker
High-school football player Mick Johnson is determined not to follow the path of his father’s failed NFL career. Mick discards his vitamin supplements in favor of steroids, but while turning in record-breaking performances, he also suffers dangerous side-effects.
The haunting of Alaizabel Cray / Chris Wooding
“In Victorian London, a new plague is underway: an infestation of demonic creatures known as wych-kin. Thaniel Fox, a 17-year-old wych-hunter who calls forth both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Indiana Jones, spends his time reducing wych-kin populations with methods that combine magic, superstition, and good old-fashioned gunslinging. After stumbling upon an obviously traumatized young woman on one of his expeditions, he swiftly discovers that she has escaped from the clutches of a powerful cult called the Fraternity. The connections between Alaizabel's plight, rising numbers of wych-kin, and the Fraternity's plans are revealed by tantalizing degrees, as Thaniel; Alaizabel; Thaniel's guardian, Cathaline; and several colorful allies join forces to combat evil on a terrifying scale.” (Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)
Leaving paradise / Simone Elkeles
Maggie has just been released from the hospital where doctors repaired her leg; Caleb has just been released from the prison after serving nine months for the car accident that injured Maggie. The two narrate alternate chapters, relating stories of psychological and physical trauma, harassment and social rejection, and their bittersweet love story.
900
The good soldiers / David Finkel
David Finkel chronicles the surge in Iraq as a Washington Post correspondent imbedded with 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad. The “waning violence still meant wild firefights, nerve-wracking patrols through hostile neighborhoods where every trash pile could hide an IED, and dozens of comrades killed and maimed. At the fraught center of the story is Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, whose dogged can-do optimism—his motto is “It’s all good”—pits itself against declining morale and whispers of mutiny.”
(Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)
The good guy / Dean Koontz
Tim Carrier, an unassuming stone mason, is mistaken for a hit man. A stranger slips him an envelope containing $10,000 and a photo of the intended victim and leaves. Moments later, the real hit man arrives and assumes Tim is his client. Tim pays the hit man for his trouble but tells him he’s changed his mind. This ploy buys Tim enough time to warn the victim and help her flee for her life.
Gym candy / Carl Deuker
High-school football player Mick Johnson is determined not to follow the path of his father’s failed NFL career. Mick discards his vitamin supplements in favor of steroids, but while turning in record-breaking performances, he also suffers dangerous side-effects.
The haunting of Alaizabel Cray / Chris Wooding
“In Victorian London, a new plague is underway: an infestation of demonic creatures known as wych-kin. Thaniel Fox, a 17-year-old wych-hunter who calls forth both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Indiana Jones, spends his time reducing wych-kin populations with methods that combine magic, superstition, and good old-fashioned gunslinging. After stumbling upon an obviously traumatized young woman on one of his expeditions, he swiftly discovers that she has escaped from the clutches of a powerful cult called the Fraternity. The connections between Alaizabel's plight, rising numbers of wych-kin, and the Fraternity's plans are revealed by tantalizing degrees, as Thaniel; Alaizabel; Thaniel's guardian, Cathaline; and several colorful allies join forces to combat evil on a terrifying scale.” (Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)
Leaving paradise / Simone Elkeles
Maggie has just been released from the hospital where doctors repaired her leg; Caleb has just been released from the prison after serving nine months for the car accident that injured Maggie. The two narrate alternate chapters, relating stories of psychological and physical trauma, harassment and social rejection, and their bittersweet love story.
900
The good soldiers / David Finkel
David Finkel chronicles the surge in Iraq as a Washington Post correspondent imbedded with 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad. The “waning violence still meant wild firefights, nerve-wracking patrols through hostile neighborhoods where every trash pile could hide an IED, and dozens of comrades killed and maimed. At the fraught center of the story is Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, whose dogged can-do optimism—his motto is “It’s all good”—pits itself against declining morale and whispers of mutiny.”
(Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)
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