Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill

Dept. of Speculation - Offill, Jenny

Summary: An unflinching portrait of marriage features a heroine simply referred to as "the Wife," who transitions from an idealistic woman who once exchanged love letters with her husband and who confronts an array of universal difficulties. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
This is a magnetic novel about a marriage of giddy bliss and stratospheric anxiety, bedrock alliance and wrenching tectonic shifts. Offill, author of the novel Last Things (1999) and various children's books, covers this shifting terrain and its stormy weather in an exquisitely fine-tuned, journal-like account narrated by "the wife," an ironic self-designation rooted in her growing fears about her marital state. She is smart if a bit drifty, imaginative and selectively observant, and so precisely articulate that her perfect, simple sentences vibrate like violin strings. And she is mordantly funny, a wry taxonomist of emotions and relationships. Her dispatches from the fog of new motherhood are hilarious and subversive. Her cynical pursuit of self-improvement is painfully accurate. Her Richter-scale analysis of the aftershocks of infidelity is gripping. Nothing depicted in this portrait of a family in quiet disarray is unfamiliar in life or in literature, and that is the artistic magic of Offill's stunning performance. She has sliced life thin enough for a microscope slide and magnified it until it fills the mind's eye and the heart. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Japanese pop, beat & bossa nova 1966-70 (CD)

Japanese pop, beat & bossa nova 1966-70 (CD)

Summary: The likes of Shonen Knife and The 5-6-7-8s have given more face to women in Japanese pop, but they draw on a tradition that stretches back to the wild 1960s 'Group Sounds' era, when the Land Of the Rising Sun was smitten with westernized rock 'n' roll, yet came to develop its own distinctive brand of the same. Like in the west, female artistes tended to be solo, though their accompaniment often came from some of the top GS acts like the Bunnies. Major female stars of the period represented here include Miki Obata, Linda Yamamoto and Mie Nakao, the latter with the fuzztoned classic Sharock No 1. The sound was eclectic, drawing upon not only the full smorgasbord of 60s styles like groovy go-go, lounge-y bossa nova and wobbly pop-psych, but also traditional Japanese songwriting and themes. There's dance floor fillers such as Ye-Ye and the usual fascinating interpretations of western material, such as Nana Kanomi's take on the Zombies' I Love You.

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Careless people - Sarah Bartlett Churchwell

Careless people: murder, mayhem, and the invention of the Great Gatsby - Churchwell, Sarah Bartlett

Summary: An investigation into the inspiration behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece traces his parties and quarrels at the side of Zelda amid the scandals and milestones of 1922 before a brutal double murder in New Jersey set the stage for what was to become an American classic. - (Baker & Taylor)

Kirkus Reviews
The Great Gatsby floats on a limpid river fed by myriads of autobiographical, cultural and historical tributaries. Churchwell (American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities/Univ. of East Anglia; The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, 2004, etc.) has written an excellent book on a novel that remains a favorite in English courses in American high schools and colleges. Surprisingly, she even manages to find fresh facts that escaped previous scholars, including one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's own published comments about his novel, a book that, as Churchwell notes, neither sold well nor received uniformly favorable reviews. Churchwell weaves together a variety of strands: a summary of the novel (including its earlier drafts), a biographical account of the years Fitzgerald was working on the novel (including the time he and Zelda were living and partying in Great Neck, near the novel's setting), and an account of a sensational New Jersey murder case in 1922 (the year that Gatsby takes place), an investigation that resulted in arrests and a trial but no convictions. Churchwell also digs deeply into the architecture of the novel--looking, for example, for the relevance of specific details Fitzgerald mentions. She also examined Simon Called Peter, a novel that Nick Carraway picks up early in Gatsby; she read countless New York newspaper and magazine files looking for items in 1922 that may have found their way into the novel (car wrecks, wild parties and the like). She haunted the rich Fitzgerald archives at Princeton and elsewhere and, employing the clarity of hindsight, chides most of the early critics who missed what Fitzgerald was up to. At times, Churchwell attempts Fitzgerald's lyrical style--one chapter-ending sentence alludes to "the vagrant dead as they scatter across our tattered Eden"--she's earned the right to play on his court. Prodigious research and fierce affection illumine every remarkable page. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The moth

The moth (Anthology)

Summary: "In the tradition of book anthologies created from public radio programs such as StoryCorps and This I Believe, THE MOTH collects the best storytelling moments--most in print here for the very first time--straight from their archive of more than 3000 shows since the first Moth Evening in 1997. From James Braly's struggling with what to do when his three-year-old son wants a pink bicycle to Dr. George Lombardi's flying to India to save Mother Theresa's life, from former U.S. Press Secretary Joe Lockhart'soversleeping after a long night in a Moscow bar and missing Air Force One on his first international trip, to Ed Gavagan's surviving being stabbed by a gang and then testifying at their trial, these 40 stories range from sublime to heartbreaking to hilarious, and this collection will feature the very best. Backed by The Moth's own efforts and their expanding syndication and live event efforts in 2012-2013, this book will be an important and cherished read for existing fans of the program, literary fans of some of the featured storytellers, and oral history buffs coast-to-coast"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Kirkus Reviews
Storytellers from a diverse array of backgrounds present true tales via a New York–based organization broadcasting at themoth.org. For all its vital cultural roots, storytelling makes a strange bedfellow with the printed page. In this self-congratulatory volume--readers can plow through a preface, a foreword and an introduction before even getting to the first story--stories originally told before live audiences are transcribed and edited to no discernible purpose, considering that they are all available in their original formats on the website. The stories run the gamut from childhood memories to love and marriage to illness, crime, war and family secrets, with several epiphanies thrown in for good measure. Some are quite moving--e.g., rapper Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' account of how Sarah McLachlan's music saved him from depression and geneticist Paul Nurse's discovery that the woman he had thought was his sister was actually his mother. Malcolm Gladwell's "Her Way" manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking in its evocation of a friendship's end. Others that should pack a punch, including writer Jillian Lauren's "The Prince and I," about her stint as a courtesan to the Sultan of Brunei, fall flat on the page. Therein lies the problem with this anthology: These stories are meant to be experienced in a live venue, where listeners can immerse themselves in each teller's unique sense of tone and timing. Unlike personal essays, stories require give and take from an audience, which prompts the question: Why bother printing these in an age when people who couldn't attend the original sessions can easily access live footage online? Other contributors include A.E. Hotchner, Adam Gopnik, Sebastian Junger and Nathan Englander. Comes across as a vanity project that does little credit to the storytelling process. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Poupee de son - France Gall (CD)

Poupee de son - France Gall (CD)

Summary: Import-only collection from the French vocalist containing 23 of her most popular recordings from 1963-67, including eight tracks written by French icon Serge Gainsbourg. Gall became a household name in Europe when she won the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest with her hit song 'Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son'. She then spent the next few decades as one of France's most popular performers. Gall was later married to French singer/songwriter Michel Berger, with whom she collaborated with on many of her most popular recordings. Features 23 tracks.

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Uganada be kidding me - Chelsea Handler

Uganada be kidding me - Handler, Chelsea

Summary: Presents a collection of humorous essays about the talk show host's life and loves and the state of the world.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Here's all you really need to know about Chelsea Handler, straight from the girl herself: "It is not lost on me that my life has become ridiculous." Handler, star of her own late-night TV show, Chelsea Lately, and best-selling author of three previous titles, including Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2008), takes readers on her travels; each adventure can only be described as a total shit show. Absurdity reigns, from a safari in Africa, where the only ones getting penetrated (her favorite word) are the hundreds of baboons at the lodge, to the Bahamas, where after eight days in Africa without a bowel movement, Handler finally lets loose into an innocent kayak. The U.S. is not left unscathed, either. At most times, Handler is surrounded by her friends—let's face it, she wouldn't survive on her own—and Chunk, a half-German, half-Asian dog that she believes to be the reincarnation of her dead mother. As long as someone can make a decent margarita, and there's Xanax on hand, Handler is just fine—although the same can't be said for the people she encounters. The final chapters really have nothing to do with travel and feel less connected to the rest of the book; in Handler's defense, she was probably drunk by this point in the writing process. But if you're one of the millions who enjoy Handler's sarcastic, self-deprecating humor (and her tendency to be pantless), then you may just pee yourself laughing as she humiliates herself from Montenegro to Telluride. Unfortunately—really unfortunately—photos weren't available at the time of review, but based on the shenanigans described, they have a ton of potential. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Who's not watching Chelsea Lately at 11/10c? Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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The sleepwalkers - Christopher M. Clark

The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914 - Clark, Christopher M.

Summary: An authoritative chronicle, drawing on new research on World War I, traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute narrative that examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914.


Booklist Reviews
The immense documentation of the origin of WWI, remarks historian Clark, can be marshaled to support a range of theses, and it but weakly sustains, in the tenor of his intricate analysis, the temptation to assign exclusive blame for the cataclysm to a particular country. Dispensing with a thesis, Clark interprets evidence in terms of the character, internal political heft, and external geopolitical perception and intention of a political actor. In other words, Clark centralizes human agency and, especially, human foibles of misperception, illogic, and emotion in his narrative. Touching on every significant figure in European diplomacy in the decade leading to August 1914, Clark underscores an entanglement of an official's fluctuating domestic power with a foreign interlocutor's appreciation, accurate or not, of that official's ability to make something stick in foreign policy. As narrative background, Clark choreographs the alliances and series of crises that preceded the one provoked by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, but he focuses on the men whose risk-taking mistakes detonated WWI. Emphasizing the human element, Clark bestows a tragic sensibility on a magisterial work of scholarship. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Find Momo - Andrew Knapp

Find Momo: my dog is hiding in this book. Can you find him? - Knapp, Andrew

Summary: Thousands of Internet fans play hide-and-seek with Momo the border collie every day, and now you can, too. Momo and his best buddy Andrew Knapp have traveled all over—through fields, down country roads, across cities, and into yards, neighborhoods, and surreal spaces of all sorts. The result is a book of spectacular photography that’s also a game you can play anytime. Lose yourself in page after page of Andrew’s beautiful, serene, dreamlike images, and sooner or later you’ll find Momo’s sweet, eager face looking back at you. (Can’t find him? Don’t worry…the answers are in the back.) - (Random House, Inc.)

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The hundred thousand kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin

The hundred thousand kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin

Series: Inheritance Trilogy

Summary: Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.

Booklist Reviews
Yeine Darr, mourning the murder of her mother, is summoned to the magnificent and beautiful city of Sky by the king, her grandfather. He names her his heir but has already assigned that role to both his niece and his nephew, so what he's now done is set up a competitive and thorny three-way power struggle. Yeine, looking more like her Darre father than her Arameri mother, may be a baroness in the Arameri world, but in the matriarchal North she is a chieftain of her people. She is also terrified and fascinated by the gods who roam Sky, including the nocturnally monstrous Nahadoth and the childlike Sieh. In just a few days, Yeine discovers that every action has consequences when she inadvertently sets up Darre to be attacked and realizes that her role in the succession to the throne may be that of a human sacrifice. This complex tale of politics, assassination, racism, and gods too intimately involved in the lives of humans is a challenging read and a notable authorial debut. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Cutie and the boxer (DVD)

Cutie and the boxer (DVD)

Summary: In New York City in 1969, nineteen-year-old art student Noriko fell in love with 41-year-old avant-garde artist Ushio Shinohara and put her career on hold to marry and support this rising star of the Manhattan art world. But 40 years later and still struggling, Ushio remains consumed with reinforcing his legacy via his 'boxing' paintings, while Noriko is now finding her own creative voice through a series of drawings.

Video Librarian Reviews
Filmmaker Zachary Heinzerling's Oscar-nominated documentary begins with an arresting title sequence in which diminutive 80-year-old avant-garde Japanese emigrant artist Ushio Shinohara creates one of his trademark "boxing" paintings—methodically moving left to right while beating the bejeezus out of a huge rectangular canvas with his paint-drenched boxing gloves, finishing the work in about two minutes. In 1969, the-41-year-old Ushio married 19-year-old art student Noriko in New York City, where the couple still live, struggling to make rent payments (at one point, Ushio literally stuffs some of his surreal sculptures into a battered suitcase and jets to Japan, returning with a few thousand dollars and a beaming smile). Noriko continues to pursue her own artistic dreams, creating drawings of a nude "Cutie and Bullie" in a series of semi-autobiographical cartoon panels (sometimes presented in striking iconographic animation here), although Ushio feels that his own work is much more important ("the average one has to support the genius"). But while the couple clearly have a loving relationship, Noriko is also starting to chafe at the proverbial bit, a little tired of being a "free secretary, free assistant, free chef." Fate smiles on Noriko when she lands the chance to do a joint exhibition with her husband (tellingly, he wants to call the exhibit "Roar!"; she successfully names it "Love Is a Roar"). Heinzerling's documentary interweaves fly-on-the-wall footage of the artists' daily lives (and interactions with their alcoholic artist son, Alex), combined with excerpts from a 1970s documentary by Rod McCall entitled Shinohara: The Last Artist. Serving up a delightful portrait of an unusual artist couple, this entertaining documentary is recommended. (R. Pitman). Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2014.

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Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos - R.L. La Fevers

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos - La Fevers, R.L.

Series: Theodosia Throckmorton

Summary: Twelve-year-old Theo uses arcane knowledge and her own special talent when she encounters two secret societies, one sworn to protect the world from ancient Egyptian magic and one planning to harness it to bring chaos to the world, both of which want a valuable artifact stolen from the London museum for which her parents work.

Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ "You'd be surprised by how many things come into the museum loaded with curses--bad ones," says 11-year-old Theodosia, whose parents run London's Museum of Legends and Antiquities. The twentieth century has just begun, and Theodosia's mum, an archaeologist, has recently returned from Egypt with crates of artifacts. Only Theodosia can feel the objects' dark magic, which, after consulting ancient texts, she has learned to remove. Then a sacred amulet disappears, and during her search, Theodosia stumbles into a terrifying battle between international secret societies. Readers won't look to this thrilling adventure for subtle characterizations (most fit squarely into good and evil camps) or neat end-knots in the sprawling plot's many threads. It's the delicious, precise, and atmospheric details (nicely extended in Tanaka's few, stylized illustrations) that will capture and hold readers, from the contents of Theodosia's curse-removing kit to descriptions of the museum after hours, when Theodosia sleeps in a sarcophagus to ward off the curses of "disgruntled dead things." Kids who feel overlooked by their own distracted parents may feel a tug of recognition as Theodosia yearns for attention, and those interested in archaeology will be drawn to the story's questions about the ownership and responsible treatment of ancient artifacts. A sure bet for Harry Potter fans as well as Joan Aiken's and Eva Ibbotson's readers. This imaginative, supernatural mystery will find word-of-mouth popularity. ((Reviewed May 1, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.

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Independent study - Joelle Charbonneau

Independent study - Charbonneau, Joelle

Series: Testing Series

Summary: Now a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas, Cia Vale attempts to expose the ugly truth behind the government's grueling and deadly Testing put her and her loved ones in great danger.

School Library Journal Reviews
Gr 6–10—In this sequel to The Testing (Houghton Harcourt, 2013), Cia is drawn deeper into the political machinations of Tosu City as she enters the University. She is accepted into the Government course of study, much to her disappointment. Now, joined by students from the City who did not have to endure the Testing, she must go through a hazing process that forces her to once again rely on her wits to survive. Cia must win an internship to continue on at the University; the alternative will be her death. Her love for Tomas takes a backseat in the narrative to make way for descriptions of how the factions are fighting for control of the capital and the Testing. The action is fast paced and the story line compelling. Fans won't have time to wonder why those who run the Testing place such a low value on the lives of their teen charges or why parents have asked so few questions about where their children end up. Readers will root for the likable and capable heroine. While the adults' motives are suspect and often inexplicable, Cia struggles to make good decisions, both ethically and intellectually. Fans of The Testing will be thrilled with this new installment and will be anxiously waiting for the story's conclusion.—Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH

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The great American dust bowl - Brown

The great American dust bowl - Brown, Don

Summary: A graphic novel account of the giant dust storms in the Midwest in the 1930s discusses the ecological and agricultural damage caused by the storms.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Concise and clear in imagery, text, and layout, Brown's (Henry and the Cannons, 2013) nonfiction examination of the Dust Bowl contextualizes its genesis in geological and cultural history, the dynamics of its climatological presentation, and the effects on both the landscape and Depression-era High Plains farmers. The pen-and-ink artwork, digitally painted in burnished and dusty brown and yellow hues—and the shock of blue that comes with the rain that eventually clears the air—is combined with swirling text, along with well-researched and minimally descriptive explanations and occasional speech balloons attributed to anonymous residents and observers. The brevity of this presentation heightens rather than diminishes its power to evoke the history, and an ample list of resources provides plenty of opportunities for further research. A closing photo of the 2011 dust storm in Arizona emphasizes that the Dust Bowl wasn't an isolated incident. This is a complete visual package, from the whirly, mud-colored cover design through the sudden reintroduction of color only after the dust storms abate. The Dust Bowl, as experienced by its survivors, truly comes to life in this compelling look at an important moment in American history. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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This is the story of a happy marriage - Ann Patchett

This is the story of a happy marriage - Patchett, Ann

Summary: Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments-- to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband-- creating a resonant portrait of her life.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* This is the story of how best-selling novelist Patchett (State of Wonder, 2011) became a writer. As a young child in California and, after her parents' divorce, Nashville, she knew she had to write, and she was fortunate, as she so warmly and vividly explains, in her writing teachers—Allan Gurganus, Grace Paley, and Russell Banks—and in her success supporting herself by writing nonfiction for magazines and newspapers, beginning with Seventeen and extending to the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vogue, and Gourmet. Patchett now assembles a retrospective set of 22 sterling personal essays to form an episodic, piquant, instructive, and entertaining self-portrait. She reflects on her family, life on a Tennessee farm, literary discipline and inspiration, and her failed first marriage. Her second marriage is central to her hilarious account of an RV road trip, and the full measure of Patchett's toughness and daring surfaces in "The Wall," a riveting account of her father, a captain when he retired after 30 years on the Los Angeles police force, coaching her as she takes the grueling admission test for the Los Angeles Police Academy. A self-described "workhorse" who has even opened an independent bookstore, Patchett is a commanding and incisive storyteller, whether her tales are true or imagined. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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May we be forgiven - A.M. Homes

May we be forgiven - Homes, A.M.

Summary: Feeling overshadowed by his more-successful younger brother, Harold is shocked by his brother's violent act that irrevocably changes their lives, placing Harold in the role of father figure to his brother's adolescent children and caregiver to his aging parents. \

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Incisive, funny, and commanding, Homes broke new ground in her last novel, This Book Will Save Your Life (2006). She continues in the same philosophical and stylistic vein in this eventful family tragicomedy set in New York's Westchester County and ignited by an epic, even biblical battle between two brothers in a Jewish family rife with feuds and subterfuge. George is a successful, arrogant, and bullying television executive with a lonely wife and exceptionally smart, sensitive children. Historian Harry endures a chilly, childless marriage, cocooned within his scholarly obsession with Richard Nixon. Resentments boil over, horrific violence ensues, and Harry finds himself in "an endless free fall," struggling to be a good parent to his nephew and niece while entangling himself in scary if hilarious Internet-initiated sexual predicaments. Homes sends her magnetic characters on a wild, mordantly comic, deeply moving odyssey through a shopping mall, nursing home, the wilderness, schools, an amusement park, a South African village, and a lawyer's office, where Harry reads an astonishing, newly discovered Nixon archive. In this frenetic, insightful, and complexly moral novel of a man transformed by crisis, Homes dramatizes hubris and greed, alienation and spirituality, improvised families, and justice in our age of smart phones, dumbed-down education, and bankrupt culture. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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