New Books - 1/5/2011

Fiction
Artichoke’s heart / Suzanne Supplee
Rosemary Goode faces some challenges: her mother’s cancer; her binge eating and resulting weight problem; her “un-cool” social status and awful nickname, “Artichoke.” Her mother’s frank, positive outlook, a new girlfriend who enjoys exercise, and a new boyfriend give Rosemary a new perspective.

Jerk, California / Jonathan Friesen
“In rural Wisconsin, Sam, a high-school student with Tourette’s Syndrome, is alienated from his peers and rejected by his stepfather, and he has trouble getting close to lovely, kind Naomi. After graduation, his stepfather kicks him out of the house, and he accepts a job and lodging from [George], who knew Sam’s late father and dispels some of Sam’s misconceptions about his dad. . . . Sam embarks on a road trip with Naomi to California, [searching for] answers left by Sam’s dad along the way.” (from Amazon.com; 1/4/10]

The sky is everywhere / Jandy Nelson
Seventeen-year-old Lennie’s older sister died suddenly from an arrhythmia. Now Lennie must deal with conflicted feelings about grief, joy, and moving on with her own life.

The ugly tree / Tamara Lyon
When a tornado destroys Cane Kallevik’s home and leaves her Grandma Betty in a coma, Cane goes to live with her employer’s family. She spends her summer keeping vigil at her grandmother’s bedside, fighting with her boss, falling in love with her boss’s nephew, and continuing her love/hate relationship with her former best friend, Mikayla. When Cane’s world “literally goes up in flames, instead of losing everything, she finds exactly what she’s looking for in the most unexpected way.” Set in a rural farm town in Illinois by an author who lives in Wisconsin. (from the back cover)

Biography
Autobiography of Mark Twain, vol. 1
Presenting Mark Twain as himself. He insisted that his autobiographical writings and dictations not be published until 100 years after his death. Time’s up!

House rules : a memoir / Rachel Sontag
Rachel Sontag was a smart, accomplished teenager from a nice family; her father was a doctor, her mother, a social worker. Behind the pretty picture was the grim truth of her father’s psychological abuse, control, and manipulation. Sontag tells the story of the courage to endure and finally, to break away.

History
The Boer Wars (1) 1836-98 / Ian Knight
European settlers of South Africa – Dutch, French, and German – came to consider themselves white Africans; they were also known as “Boers”, meaning famers. This book tells of their many conflicts with native African peoples. (Think Conrad, people!)

The Boer War 1899-1902 / Gregory Fremont-Barnes
While the British had easily defeated the native Africans, they had a much more difficult task in fighting the white Africans. Book covers 19th century history of South Africa, including the discovery of diamonds and gold; background on the British Empire and the Boers; and a narrative of the conflicts which includes maps. (Again, think Heart of Darkness!)

Ratification : the people debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 / Pauline Maier
Across the country, the work of the Constitutional Convention was carefully read and widely debated in pubs, in private homes, and in the press. Ratifying conventions debated the document clause by clause. Maier, a professor of American History at MIT, presents the first history of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Hallelujah!

A video to lift the spirits and remind us of the reason for the season.

View the video.

Committing a random act of culture, the Opera Company of Philadelphia rallied 650 singers to surprise shoppers at Macy's Department Store in Philadelphia. At noon, the Wannamaker Grand Court Organ, the world's largest functional pipe organ, struck up the "Hallelujah Chorus."

The "Hallelujah Chorus" closes the Easter portion of The Messiah. Composed in 1741 in just 24 days, the The Messiah is George F. Handel's most famous oratorio.

A Piece of History : a Message of Peace

During World War II, ten thousand German soldiers were housed in a Prisoner of War Camp in Algona, Iowa. In 1944, Eduard Kaib and five friends created a nativity scene to celebrate Christmas. The scene consisted of sixty figures, half life-size and constructed of concrete and plaster. When the camp was disbanded at the end of the war, the crèche was left as a gift for the town of Algona. The local United Methodist Men’s group has created a permanent display featuring the nativity scene and its history.

Click here to view the video.

Figment.com - Literary website for Teens

Figment.com, a literary website for young people, will be launched on Monday, December 6. The site is a free platform for teens to read and write fiction--novels, short stories, poems; to write solo or collaboratively; and to give and receive feedback.

The site will also provide a forum for publishers to scout new talent and to release previews of books. Running Press Kids has contracted to release an excerpt of "Purple Daze," an historical novel by Sherry Shahan.

Holiday Gift Guide : Best Books of 2010 - from the New York Times

Freedom / Jonathan Franzen

The New Yorker Stories / Anne Beattie

The Room / Emma Donoghue

Selected Stories / William Trevor

A visit from the goon squad / Jennifer Egan

Apollo's angels : a history of ballet / Jennifer Homans

Cleopatra : a life / Stacy Schiff

The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer / Siddhartha Mukherjee

Finishing the hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, ­Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes / Stephen Sondheim

The warmth of other suns : The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration / Isabel Wilkerson.

Read more at The New York Times

See also "100 Notable Books of 2010."

The Brain as Art

A new art book literally presents the beauty of the mind. The NYT reviewer comments that "scientists are routinely seduced by beauty." An appreciation for beauty extends far beyond the scientific community. Carl Schoonover, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Columbia, has taken up the challenge of presenting the beauty and mystery of the brain as art. The work "includes short essays by prominent neuroscientists and long captions by Mr. Schoonover — but its words take second place to the gorgeous imagery, from the first delicate depictions of neurons sketched in prim Victorian black and white to the giant Technicolor splashes the same structures make across 21st-century LED screens." (from NYT; 12/2/10)

“Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain From Antiquity to the 21st Century" by Carl Schoonover.


Read more at The New York Times.

Jackie Kennedy : a life of her own

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis--the beautiful fashion plate, the linguist, the avid reader, the book editor. Two new books discuss Onassis's career in publishing.

“Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books,” by William Kuhn, a biographer and historian, will be released on Dec. 7.

"Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis” by Greg Lawrence and will be released Jan. 4.

Read more at The New York Times.