| December 2004
There are always lots of lists at the end of the year. Here's a short, eclectic list of some of our favorite reference books. Just because.
Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998. (Ref N 7560 .E53 1998) The purpose of this interesting work is to show how fundamental cultural narratives and themes have been represented in the arts. Includes both stories and general themes sucha s abandoment, envy, and ecstasy. Each essay ends with lists of works that employ the theme and selected secondary sources. How liberal arts can you get?
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. 3 vols. New York: Scribner, 2003. (Ref GT2850 .E53 2003) A wide-ranging exploration of food and its cultural significance worldwide. Great fun for browsing.
Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior. 4 vols. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge, 2001. (Ref HV6017 .E53 2001) Any reference book with "deviance" in the title gets our vote.
Encyclopedia of Psychology. 8 vols. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2000. (Ref BF 38 .E52 2000) Want to know what makes us tick? Go nuts with this authoritative encyclopedia.
Encyclopedia of the Biosphere. 11 vols. Detroit: Gale, 2000. (Ref QH 343.4 .B5613 2000) Covers world habitats such as tropical rainforests, savannahs, prairies, and lakes. Based on a 1998 Catalan publication compiled under the sponsership of UNESCO. Incredible photos.
Encyclopedia of World Environmental History. 3 vols. New York: Routledge, 2004. (Ref GF 10 .E63 2004) Covers topics, events, people, natural resources, and aspects of human interaction with the environment worldwide with an unusually generous scope.
Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 20 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.(Ref PE 1625 .O87 1989 and online) This vast dictionary is an invaluable source for understanding the various meanings of words and their changing definitions. It is unique in providing chronological examples of how a word was used in texts. It is unequaled in its exhaustiveness. Particularly useful if you want to demonstrate the many meanings or historical connotations of a word. And it may be the only reference work that has had a bestselling book written about it - Simon Winchester's The Madman and the Professor: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (PE1617.O94 W56 1998).
November
2004
This
month we're highlighting the pleasures of reading. And these books about
reading help explain how it is we get lost in books.
Victor Nell. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for
Pleasure.
Z1003 .N426 1988
People read either to
dull consciousness or to heighten it, according to psychologist Nell ...
[who] maps different levels in readers' change of consciousness, from
absorption all the way to entrancement. While some sections of his report
are for specialists, bookworms will enjoy his discussions of mass reading
tastes, how readers choose material, the spellbinding powers of narrative,
and the ways reading resembles dreaming, hypnosis and fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
Daniel Pennac. Better than Life.
PN1009.A1
P46 1994
"Life is a A French writer and teacher reflects on reading.
"He attempts to demystify the traditional, mostly school-rooted conception
of knowing how to read. He goes so far as offering a 'Reader's Bill of
Rights,' which guarantees, among other things, the right to reread, skip
pages, not to have to defend your taste, and even not to read at all."
Library Journal
Francis Spufford. The Child that Books Built: A Life in
Reading.
Z1037.A1 S74 2002
"Anxious to uncover the
roots of his addiction to reading, British journalist and critic Spufford
revisits the books he so avidly consumed as a boy, titles by authors
ranging from Tolkien to Ian Fleming and from Laura Ingalls Wilder to C. S.
Lewis, whose Narnia he evokes with an aching and poignant yearning. By
resurrecting the personal circumstances of his early reading, Spufford
mixes richly evoked childhood emotions with the necessary distance of his
adult sensibility. The result is a fascinating amalgam of memoir, literary
criticism, child psychology, epistemology, and quest." Michael Cart,
Booklist.
September
- October 2004
Things
have changed in the US since the events of 9/11.There are a number of
books in the library reflecting on these changes. Here are a few
suggestions.
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report on the
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
HV6432.7 .N38 2004
What happened, what could have been done differently, and what to do
next. Unlike most government documents, this report has been praised for
its lucid and engaging style. And though it is available for free online, the published
edition has been a bestseller--and was recently nominated for the National
Book Award.
Noam
Chomsky. 9/11
HV6432 .C44 2001
A short, sharp, critical
book that links the attacks to global capitalism. "Based on a composite of
interviews, conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon
and World Trade Center by famed journalists from around the world,
Chomsky's impeccable knowledge of US foreign policy in the Middle East
lifts the veil of propaganda surrounding the new war on terrorism and
investigates the long-term implications of America's military attacks
abroad."
Richard Clarke. Against All Enemies: Inside America's
War on Terror.
Browsing HV6432 .C53 2004
"From the first
thrilling chapter, which takes readers into the White House center of
operations on September 11, through his final negative assessment of
George W. Bush's post-9/11 war on terror, Clarke, the U.S.'s former
terrorism czar, offers a complex and illuminating look into the successes
and failures of the nation's security apparatus." Publishers
Weekly
May 2004
Looking
for summer reading? Take a few leaves from the library's display for
archair travelers. Or try one of these novels in our Browsing
Collection.
Jonathan Safran Foer. Everything is
Illuminated.
Browsing PS3606.O38 E84 2002
"This highly imaginative debut novel features a protagonist
with the same name as the author. The fictional Jonathan Safran Foer, also
a writer, travels to Eastern Europe after his junior year in college...
Generations become united across time in this fanciful tale, as Foer, the
author, gives the reader a contemporary version of 19th-century Jewish
drama one that blends laughter and tears." - Molly Abramowitz, Library
Journal
Rohinton Mistry. Family Matters.
Browsing
PR9199.3.M494 F36 2002b
"In much the same way that he did in
his 1996 book 'A Fine Balance' -- which was set in 1975, against the
backdrop of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule -- Mr. Mistry tries to open out
the story of the Vakeel clan to look at larger social and political
issues. This time he addresses religious conflicts in Bombay: tensions
among Hindus and Muslims and Parsis, and tensions within those groups
between liberals and fundamentalists. Yezad's eagerness to supplement his
income will lead him to concoct a risky con game involving a radical
religious group, a con game that will lead, at least indirectly, to a
friend's violent death and to Yezad's own metamorphosis from Westernized
skeptic to spiritual zealot." - Michiko Kakutani, New York
Times
Howard Frank Mosher. The True
Account.
Browsing PS3563.O8844 T78 2003
"Yet another
novel that anticipates the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's
expedition, this clever account by Mosher (A Stranger in the Kingdom,
etc.) breaks with form, to hilarious effect. Private True Teague Kinneson,
a Vermont schoolteacher and inventor, writes to Jefferson to recommend
himself for the expedition to the Pacific. When Jefferson announces that
he's already appointed Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, True,
with his teenage nephew, Ticonderoga, in tow, heads West anyway,
determined to reach the Pacific first ... Fun and fanciful with much to
savor, Mosher's novel demonstrates a boundless imagination and a light
comic touch." - Publisher's Weekly
Arthur Phillips. Prague.
Browsing
PS3616.H45 P73 2002
"Everything about this dazzling first novel
is utterly original, including the title: it's about a group of young
American (and one Canadian) expatriates living in Budapest in 1990, just
after the Communist empire has collapsed, and the point of "Prague" is
that it's the place everyone would rather be, except they have all somehow
settled for Budapest as second best to their idealized Central European
city... This novel is so complete a distillation of its theme and
characters that it leaves a reader wondering how on earth Phillips can
follow it up." - Publisher's Weekly
April
2004
If you
haven't enjoyed our local poets, what's stopping you? In honor of poetry
month, here's a sampler of poetry books by our faculty.
Philip Bryant. Blue Island.
Sermon on a Perfect
Spring Day.
"Phil Bryant is in love with the worlds of flesh,
language, music, culture, even his own relatives . . . these sermons
preach loving wisdom and humor." - Bill Holm
John
Calvin Rezmerski. What Do I Know? New and Selected Poems.
Held
for Questioning: Poems.
"John Rezmerski isn't fooled by
the turbulent, oddball ways we run our lives: he takes a lot of close
looks and he still knows the species is worth loving . . . He picks up on
what's lyrical in us, without denying our stumblebum longings."
- Carol Bly
Joyce Sutphen. Naming the Stars.
Coming Back to the Body.
Straight Out of View.
"Sutphen's poetry can hit you like a
bright sunset after a day of gloomy rain. Although she claims in one poem
to be burning the woods of her childhood tree by tree, she proceeds to
show the subtle pleasures of growing up on a midwestern farm and briefly
resurrect friends who have since passed out of her life. Elsewhere, she
takes such luminaries as Plath, Yeats, Eliot, and Socrates as subjects
without ever losing the controlled energy and observant eye that make her
more personal poems so powerful. Her words and images fly, but not out of
view. It is possible to appreciate the grace and sweep of every poem
without any sacrifice of meaning; each poem raises its wings and leaves us
grateful for such poetic flight." - Booklist
To hear
poetry read aloud, check out the "listening booth" at the Academy of American Poets Web
site.
March
2004
In
appreciation of Women's History Month, here are some works of historical
fiction by women, about women.
Michelle Cliff. Free Enterprise.
PR9265.9.C55 F74
1993
A woman, living on the banks of the Mississippi River, serves
as a voluntary companion to residents of an isolated leper colony. This
novel ties together multiple strands of women's experiences in the African
diaspora in an imaginative tour de force.
Maryse Conde. I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem.
PQ3949.2.C65 M5613 1994
Offers an
imaginative first-person account of the events at Salem from the
perspective of an African woman who, during her imprisonment on witchcraft
charges, meets with Hester Prynne. A picaresque, postermodern
folk-epic.
Elena Garro. Recollection of Things to Come.
PQ7297.G3585 R413
A novel
about the Mexican Revolution told from a collective village perspective.
Mixes historical events with the more timeless narrative interpretation of
the villagers in a way that challenges chronology with a more holistic
view that makes it possible to "remember" both past and future at
once.
Bessie Head. A Bewitched Crossroad.
PR9369.3.H4 B4
1986
An historical novel that retells the history of Botswana,
"bewitched" because in spite of being at the crossroads of competing
colonial powers it never became colonial possession.
Bharati Mukherjee. The Holder of the
World.
PR9499.3.M77 H65
1993
With the intricacy of a Moghul miniature, an American "assets
researcher" traces the history of a jewel that once belonged to an
American puritan who became the "Salem Bibi" in the court of the Indian
emperor. As she digs deeper she uses historical data to enter the past and
find out what happened.
February
2004
The
library is soon moving from its original online catalog, PALS, to a new
statewide system. The exhibit cases near the front doors contain a
fascinating record of the library's past - from its first notebook-sized
book catalog (in Swedish) to our current migration. In connection with
this event, here are some books about libraries and the changing nature of
information.
Louise S. Robbins. The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown:
Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American
Library.
Z 733 .B283 R63
2000
Someone should tell John Ashcroft; librarians have been
troublemakers for years. In 1950, a librarian was dismissed after thirty
years working at the public library in a small Oklahoma town, allegedly
for circulating subversive materials. This book shows how issues of race,
gender, class, and national origin intersected and clashed with the ethos
of the McCarthy era in a small American community - and how their library
was the site of that collision.
Sven
Birkerts. The Guttenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic
Age.
Z 1003 .B57
1994
An essayist considers the ways technology is changing our
world, and how reading "registers and transmits the shock of the new."
Nicholson Baker. Double fold: Libraries and the Assault on
Paper.
Z 695.655 .B35
2001
A novelist chides libraries for adopting new technology too
enthusiastically, pointing to the replacement of historic newspapers by
microfilm as a specific instance. With the verve of an Oliver Stone, he
uncovers a suspicious link between major library's policies and the CIA
and, along the way, rescues endangered paper.
Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H.R. Harper The Myth of the
Paperless Office.
HF 55521 .S43
2002
Though not about libraries, this intriguing and original study
uncovers some fascinating facts about Melville Dewey and explores why, so
often, paper simply works best.
January
2004
In
keeping with January Term's theme--Undergraduate Research and
Creativity--here's a short shelf of creative fiction that draws on
research as a dramatic driving force.
Carole Muske-Dukes Saving St. Germ
PS3563.U837S28
1995
A riviting and poetic novel about a scientist trying to balance
her search for scientific knowledge, motherhood, and a personal and
professional life that's coming apart. "This portrait of the artist as
wife, mother and academic limns the semi-madness of a creative woman. It
is engaging and irreverent, peopled by offbeat, sharply delineated
characters. -- Publisher's Weekly
Michael Ondaatje Anil's Ghost
PR9199.3.O5A84
2000
CSI meets the real world. A forensic anthropogist returns to her
native Sri Lanka as part of a human right's fact-finding mission. The
personal, political, and professional intersect in a ghost-filled land
torn by conflict."Ondaatje's willingness to look human suffering in the
face is one of his compelling virtues, and gives his dreamlike montages
their stern depth." -- John Updike, The New Yorker
Sarah Smith Chasing Shakespeares
BROWSING
PS3569.M5379758C53 2003
The
mystery--who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? Two graduate students
are poised to make their scholarly mark, though the letter they find,
signed by the Bard, that says he didn't write them may well be a forgery.
"This is a complex book about attachment and ambition, the clash of class
and culture, with its settings-Boston and Britain-vividly drawn."
-- Publisher's Weekly
Richard Powers Galatea 2.2
PS3566.O92G35
1995
A writer and a
neuroscientist team up to build an artifically intelligent neural network
knowledgable enough to pass a master's exam in English literature.
"Dazzling...a cerebral thriller that's both intellectually engaging and
emotionally compelling, a lively tour de force." -- Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times
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