100 Notable Books of 2008

Have a little time to read?

Need to buy some Christmas gifts?

Follow the link below to discover outstanding fiction/nonfiction/poetry suggestions from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/books/review/100Notable-t.html?_r=1&ref=arts

Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys"

From Publisher's Weekly:

""Fat Charlie" Nancy leads a life of comfortable workaholism in London, with a stressful agenting job he doesn't much like, and a pleasant fiancée, Rosie. When Charlie learns of the death of his estranged father in Florida, he attends the funeral and learns two facts that turn his well-ordered existence upside-down: that his father was a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god, and that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. Spider comes to visit Charlie and gets him fired from his job, steals his fiancée, and is instrumental in having him arrested for embezzlement and suspected of murder. When Charlie resorts to magic to get rid of Spider, who's selfish and unthinking rather than evil, things begin to go very badly for just about everyone. Other characters...are expertly woven into Gaiman's rich myth, which plays off the African folk tales in which Anansi stars. But it's Gaiman's focus on Charlie and Charlie's attempts to return to normalcy that make the story so winning—along with gleeful, hurtling prose."

I've long loved Anansi stories. If you can suspend disbelief for a while, you'll be rewarded with a wonderful story. Charlie and Spider discover how intertwined their gifts are and how balanced their lives can be if they work together. It all starts with a song and it ends with a song.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Join the Friends of the High Library Book Club as they delve into Doris Kearns Goodwin's exploration of Lincoln's political genius. They meet on Wednesday, Sept. 24th at 7 pm in the Library Conference Room on the entrance level of the library.

Historian Goodwin took ten years to complete this work. She examines the leadership style of Lincoln as he worked with William H. Seward as secretary of state, Salmon P. Chase as secretary of the treasury and Edward Bates as attorney general. Each of these men were Lincoln's opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860. Lincoln turned personal and political competitors into allies for the sake of the greater good.

Come join the Friends and share your insights.

Heartbreaking book that will lift your soul and spirit...

Why did I survive? Immaculee Ilibagiza's soul-wrenching work about the 1992 Rwandan genocide is the author's answer to the question she asks herself and us throughout ... she was left to tell. And tell she does - in this heart-breaking, honest, naked, and portrait of a nightmare. Immaculee was one of seven Tutsis women hidden during the genocide in a small bathroom of a pastor's home. Time and again we come to realize that survival for these women was nothing short of a miracle. For Immaculee, her imprisonment within the bathroom cell only serves to empower her belief in God and the ultimate goodness and redemption of man. Her act of forgiveness when meeting face to face with the man who ordered her family to be butchered in the streets, is beyond words. Immaculee's closing words are haunting in their overpowering truth that the genocide which inflicted so much pain and suffering in Rwanda, was really a crime which inflicted suffering on us all. To read this book brings us much much closer to this truth and how we act against such crimes of humanity in the future.

"Is Google making us Stoopid?" by Nicholas Carr

"Is Google making us Stoopid? What the Internet is doing to our brains." by Nicholas Carr.
Atlantic Monthly. July/August 2008. 302:1 56-63.

• Having trouble concentrating?


• How's your memory?


• Do you want only the main points?


• Is your writing style more telegraphic than ever?

This fascinating article begins with the author's observation that his brain has changed over the past ten years. He compares his experiences with those of his colleagues, who anecdotally note that they have difficulty concentrating for extended periods of time and that the duration of comfortably reading has shrunk considerably. Although people read more today, particularly text messages and web pages, the amount of "deep reading" has declined.

Brains can be affected by technology. Carr notes that Nietzsche's writing changed as his vision failed and as he moved to writing with a typewriter. His writing became even terser. Analogously, clocks changed the way that people interacted with time. Instead of people deciding when to eat, sleep, and work using their bodily senses, clocks became the dominant technological way to organize personal activities.

The appearance of the printing press led to concerns about the undermining of religious authority, intellectual laziness and weakening minds, and the spread of sedition and dabauchery. In some people's minds, those predictions have come true. However, there are many benefits to the populace from the easy availability of the printed word.

I'm in a public service job where interruptions are constant. Add to that the break in focused work by email. An attention span which once could last for several hours has dwindled to several minutes. I worry that my problem solving abilities are deteriorating. My writing skills have declined immensely as has my vocabulary over the past few years. I'm hooked on young adult literature--I could say that it was related to the ages of my children, but is that true? My memory is only minimally better than that of my 80 year old aunt. I don't have to use my memory anymore, because I can look up whatever I need on Google!

What are your experiences?

What do you think of the Carr's analysis of the impact of Google on our brains?

From on-campus you can read the article here: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=32562106&site=ehost-live

Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

Curious about the life of Muslim women in the 1950's in Iraq? Trained as a journalist, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea travels with her anthropologist husband to a conservative Shiite village of El Nahra. She involves herself in the daily lives of the village women. For a year and a half, she lives as the native women do, in purdah, veiled from head to foot.

Check it out at the High Library!

915.67 F364g

Bill on Will ...

I'll make this brief as well ... I LOVE Bill Bryson! I will read anything this author puts out, and he has never failed to surprise and enlighten. I was pleasantly amused to find that Bill's latest book is on the Bard himself. Bryson is himself an ex-pat now living quietly in the England he so loving explored in Notes from a Small Island. Loving the UK as he does, it is no surprise that he turns his attention and pen to the life of William Shakespeare. This is a nice, neat addition to the Eminent Lives Series - and thankfully the Bryson wit, wisdom and tenacity for the facts are all here.

Admittedly, this is a very brief book as we know very little about Shakespeare, which it seems would best be spelled Shakspere if we were in keeping with what we do know of the man. Bryson gives us wonderful detail about Elizabethan London - a place of plague, pestilence and wonderful theatre! Bill does a magnificent job of countering the anti-Stratford arguements that Will in one man did not exist. It is great fun and I offer that this is the perfect book to read if you little time and wish to learn a great deal about a great man who we happen to know nearly nothing about!

Al's short course on discourse ...

I'll make this brief ... read this book. The now Nobel Prize winning vice-president and global champion returns to his political roots and turns in a very simple lesson for us all. If you are like me and have found yourself asking how one might possibly try and address (let alone try and fix) the varied political problems facing our democracy, Gore does us all the favor of suggesting that we look no further than the core of the American constitution and return once again to reason and the power of a well-informed citizenry. The key word being well-informed. The self-proclaimed father of the Internet does an excellent job making the case for not mistaking quantity for quality in the role that information plays in our lives. Once we arm ourselves with solid information and facts, the central role of reason and discourse can return to our democracy. It seems like a simple lesson that we all did learn at one time in our American History class. For Al Gore it is a lesson which bears repeating. I would agree. An excellent and easy read. Do not spend too much time considering the overall layout of the book. The chapters have little discernable order and so flow from one idea to the next. The resulting effect is that you will be given pause to think and hope once again.

Suspension by Richard Crabbe

The Friends Book Club's newest reading selection is Suspension. This historical thriller centers around the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Here's a synopsis from Publishers Weekly.
"The saboteurs, led by former Civil War Capt. Thaddeus Sangree, view the bridge as a symbol of the North's moral corruption and misguided desire for unity. Sangree's own secret motivation is personal: his brother, Franklin, was killed at Gettysburg, and Sangree holds former Union Col. Washington Roebling responsible for his brother's death. Roebling's father designed the Brooklyn Bridge and the younger Roebling is its chief engineer. The scheme has been meticulously planned for years, with saboteurs obtaining jobs working on the bridge so they can understand its weak points. However, when they kill a bridge mason who has caught on to their plan, the murder attracts the attention of bulldog police detective Tom Braddock. Braddock sniffs out the plot through a combination of dogged pursuit, investigative cunning and the brute force that was common practice in 19th-century law enforcement."
(Nov.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Join the Friends on Wednesday, March 26th at 7pm in the High Library conference room for a lively discussion!

A sense of the mysterious by Alan Lightman

I was hooked by Alan Lightman's writing after reading Einstein's Dreams. Lightman is both a physicist and a novelist, giving him the tools to write this volume that is subtitled Science and the Human Spirit. Metaphors to explain scientific phenomenon fill these essays and your mind. For example, from cosmology, the use of a slowly inflating balloon covered with dots to represent the expansion of the universe with no known center. Lightman celebrates these unions of science and the humanities. His biographies of Albert Einstein (the contradictory genius), Richard Feynman (the one and only), Edward Teller (megaton man), and Vera Rubin (dark matter) explore each person's imagination, creativity and personality as they wrestle with science and the world. Lightman ends the book with two insightful essays. One essay explores the ramifications of turning 35 and thereby becoming an "old man" in theoretical physics. Most discoveries in that field are made scientists in their twenties! The final essay examines the wired world and the lack of time to waste. Wasted time for Lightman is time that feeds curiosity, creativity, and the inner soul.

Let us know what you think about this book or other books by Lightman.

Beguiled by the Wild: The Art of Charley Harper

I was introduced to the art of Charley Harper through a recent issue of Audubon magazine. By doing a little more digging, I uncovered this gem of a book.
Each colorful picture is accompanied by a paragraph of succinct information about each illustrated bird or animal. Mr. Harper labels his illustrations and fills the descriptions with a multitude of puns.
Some of my favorites include "Dolfun", "Family Owlbum", "Lovey Dovey", "Skimmerscape", and for the zebra picture above "Serengeti Spaghetti"!

The Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer

The Friends Book Club continues to meet.

Next meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 27th in the High Library Conference Room at 7pm. The Friends meet on the 4th Wednesday of the month. They select books from Bestsellers, National Book Award winners, Classics and the lighter side.

This month's selection is written by John Mortimer who is a retired barrister and is the creator of Rumpole. The Friends have characterized this book as "how not to grow old graciously." This witty book is filled with entertaining tales about Mortimer's childhood years in England during World War I, travels in Morocco, travel filmmaking with Franco Zeffirelli, panhandlers in New York as well as serous concerns such as prison reform.

Enjoy the book, then enjoy the company of other readers. See you there.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

I came to this book from first watching the movie at the recommendation of my daughter. It's about an entering high school freshman and some blurred memories of an incident over the summer.

The writing is clear, insightful and funny.
"The ninth graders are herded into the auditorium. We fall into classes: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Suffering Artists, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless. I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. I didn't go to the mall, the lake, or the pool, or answer the phone. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with."

"The orchestra plays an unrecognizable tune. Heather says the school board won't let them perform Christmas Carols or Hanukkah songs or Kwanzaa tunes. Instead of multicultural, we have no-cultural."

"The rest of the Marthas sigh on cue. Apparently, beets are Not Good Enough. Real Marthas only collect food that they like to eat, like cranberry sauce, dolphin-safe tuna, or baby peas. I can see Heather dig her nails into her palms under the table. The peanut butter molds to the roof of my mouth like a retainer."

Through art class, Melinda Sordino finds her voice.
Even though this was written for a juvenile audience, I found many truths here.

100 Notable Books of 2007

Have a little time to read?

Need to buy some Christmas gifts?

Want to make a reading list?

Follow the link below to discover outstanding fiction/nonfiction/poetry suggestions from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/notable-books-2007.html?ex=1354510800&en=a3e0be2831179b73&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

These titles were culled from the New York Times Book Review since December 3rd, 2006.

Enjoy.

American Gospel: God, the founding fathers, and the making of a nation.

This book came to my attention from two campus colleagues. Here's what others have said.

Library Journal: "Newsweek managing editor Meacham here holds that, despite the strong religious differences of the Founding Fathers, religion became a force for unity, not division; it shaped the Constitution and the nation without strangling it. This is quite an argument to make given the history chronicled. Quakers were at odds with Anglicans, and New Englanders engaged in witch trials while building a "City of God." Others massacred Indians. The Virginia charter provided for Christian mission but also for taking land and searching for gold. To boot, early settlers of that state purchased slaves. Meanwhile, deists Jefferson and Franklin looked at Jesus as the great moral teacher. The religious spirit was "more sectarian than ecumenical," the author maintains, yet it was recognized that a moral and religious force that God provided could and would serve as a uniting factor. Meacham provides a balanced account of this "American Gospel" as to how it was formed and how it is shaping our history down to such present-day challenges as holiday displays, prayer in schools, abortion, euthanasia, and gay rights." --George Westerlund, formerly with Providence P.L., Palmyra, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

The title is a bit misleading, since the book chronicles these issues through the late twentieth century. Current and past presidents have struggled with the implications of decisions as they relate to religion and politics. Share your insights here.

Tomorrow by Graham Swift

Friends of the High Library Book Club meets Wednesday, November 28th in the High Library Conference Room at 7pm.

Come join the discussion of this recent book.

"From Amazon: Graham Swift wants to keep us awake with Tomorrow, a monologue in which a mother lies next to her husband, worrying about a revelation that will soon alter their lives."

Graham Swift is a previous Booker Prize award winning author. This novel is written from a woman's point of view and is primarily an interior monologue. Does this writing style work or is it just tedious?

Join the discussion either in person or on the blog. Let us know what you think.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, subtitled "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" could be sub-subtitled, "a paradigm-changing experience." I'm having my first-year seminar read large selections from this book for several reasons. One, as Deirdre Donahue says in USA Today, "it reaffirms that human beings are profoundly social beings influenced by and influencing other human beings, no matter how much technology we introduce into our lives." Two, while Gladwell posits that ideas are viral, I also believe that information is viral in how it gets spread. There's no better way to understand the global information environment and the Internet than via Gladwell's metaphors. Third, Gladwell is able to synthesize phenomena from epidemiology, psychology, sociology and group dynamics, bringing, as Paula Geyh says in the Chicago Tribune, "insights gleaned from these disparate fields together and applying them to an impressive array of contemporary social behaviors and cultural trends. Such knowledge, properly applied, could have enormous potential." I hope that all readers of Gladwell's work will be able to make further connections after they read this book.

Marker by Robin Cook

Physician Robin Cook is a writer of medical thrillers that focus on current technological and/or ethical issues.



Genetic tests for a variety of medical conditions are available to individuals who are at increased risk based on family history or ethnic background. With the completion of the human genome project, Cook explores medical insurance issues related to genetic markers--hence the title.


In this instance an intelligent pathologist notices a pattern of unexpected cases of healthy young adults in the hospital morgue to be autopsied. Soon she has amassed a cohort of cases.



Health insurance is based on pooling risk within specified groups. Since markers have been mapped throughout the human genome, risk can now be determined. "Marker" deals with the negative impact of the ability to predict illness. When confidentiality is breached and the information is obtained or otherwise falls into the wrong hands, patient care could be compromised.

Cook provides an exciting read and thought-provoking content.

Meet the Author: David Downing Wednesday, October 17th at 7pm at the High Library

Professor David C. Downing from Elizabethtown College’s Department of English, has written a popular history of dissent in the South during the Civil War, titled A South Divided. Documenting the numerous examples of exceptions to the “myth of the Solid South,” Downing shows that there were regions as well as individuals in the South that did not agree with the Confederate stance of separation from the Union. One region seceded from Virginia to form an entirely new state, West Virginia. Other examples discussed are of individuals or groups leaving the South to fight for the Union side. Downing states that roughly 200,000 black and 100,000 whites crossed the battle lines to fight for the North. This latter category of dissidents included a regiment of cavalry, the “First Alabama, USA.”

In a very readable prose style, this is an engaging book that helped clarify for me the context and meaning behind the first stanza of Robbie Robertson’s classic song about the Civil War, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down:

Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train

‘Til Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again

In the winter of ’65, we were hungry, just barely alive

By May the tenth, Richmond had fell,

it’s a time I remember oh so well.

One of the little written about causes regarding the Confederacy’s collapse, and the accuracy behind the lyrics above, can be found in A South Divided.

Peter DePuydt

Meet the authors of Amish Grace

Amish Grace: How forgiveness transcended tragedy

Donald B. Kraybill, Senior Fellow, Young Center, Elizabethtown College
Steven M. Nolt, Associate Professor, History, Goshen College
David L. Weaver-Zercher, Associate Professor, American Religious History, Messiah College

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
4:00-5:00pm
The High Library , Elizabethtown College

Amish Grace explores the questions raised in the wake of the October 2006 Nickle Mines shooting about the religious beliefs that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. In response to the intense demand for information about Amish ways, the authors got together to create this book. Please join the authors as they discuss the challenges of collaborating on the writing of this book.

From Publisher's Weekly: "the authors establish that forgiveness is embedded in Amish society through five centuries of Anabaptist tradition, and grounded in the firm belief that forgiveness is required by the New Testament. The community's acts of forgiveness were not isolated decisions by saintly individuals but hard-won countercultural practices supported by all aspects of Amish life. Common objections to Amish forgiveness are addressed in a chapter entitled, What About Shunning? The authors carefully distinguish between forgiveness, pardon and reconciliation, as well as analyze the complexities of mainstream America's response and the extent to which the Amish example can be applied elsewhere. This intelligent, compassionate and hopeful book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on forgiveness."

Signed copies of Amish Grace will be available for purchase.

Contact the High Library at 717-361-1451 or hyderl@etown.edu for more information.