December 26, 2012

OK You Mugs edited by Luc Sante and Melissa Pierson

OPENING LINES:

Actors are our spectral friends. They are figures who loom in our lives as large as or maybe even larger than our actual acquaintances, but with an important difference: they don’t know who we are.

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Eclectic culture-vulture Sante (author of the deliciously seedy Lowlife) teams with Pierson in this compilation of essays about Hollywood actors from the great years of the 20th century. There are some real gems here: John Updike on “Suzie Creamcheese” (Doris Day), Berkeley’s own Griel Marcus on the eternally squalid J.T. Walsh, Siri Hustvedt on Franklin Pangborn, and–my favorite–Sante on “Warner Brothers Fat Men” (e.g. Eugene Palette, Sidney Greenstreet et. al.). An agreeable and engaging dossier for devoted movie buffs and definitely an argument in favor of a William Demarest Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars: given naturally, to our underappreciated character actors.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: OK You Mugs

December 4, 2012

Nonrequired Reading by Wisława Szymborska

GREAT LINES:

[T]heir chief enemies knew how to write, whereas the Vandals despised the art of writing to the end of their days. Whatever information we have about the Vandals … is inevitably less than favorable.

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Wisława Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. Don’t let that scare you. This is a breezy, charming collection of responses to reading – don’t call them book reviews, she pleads. Think of “Nonrequired Reading” as a blog between covers. In the first essay Szymborska lets herself feel superior to scientists who have made their names discovering chloroform or proving the germ theory. “[D]id I ever forget to show up at my own wedding like Pasteur?” In an essay about terrariums, Szymborska protests that she can’t stand the creepy crawlies that live in them. “I’m not this book’s ideal reader. I’m reading it only because since childhood I’ve derived pleasure from accumulating useless knowledge. And after all, who’s to say what’s useless and what isn’t?” Knowing how to pack a frog for mailing might come in handy one day, right? Szymborska takes issue with authors who say the clothing one wears reflects the type of society in which one lives. In Rome, she protests, “[i]t wasn’t easy to tell a slave from a free man on the street; a slave might strut covered in gold, whereas free citizens just tossed on any old thing.” All the pieces are short, a page or two. If you have no interest in the topic at hand, well, maybe Szymborska doesn’t either and uses it as an excuse to talk about something else, some mishap from childhood, say, or how unfair it is that widgeons have yet to appear in poems. Szymborska is an intellectual, well-read and thoughtful; rarely, however, does her chatty, chiding, bemused voice talk down to us. A fun read and, possibly, you’ll find fresh leads through Szymborska’s reading to more of your own.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: Nonrequired Reading

November 10, 2012

The Mystery of Consciousness by John R. Searle

GREAT LINE:

Always ask yourself what we know about how the world works in fact.


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The trouble with trying to read books about contemporary philosophy is that way too many of them turn out to be blizzards of jargon and obscurity, deal with questions nobody needs to answer, are full of mistakes only a true aficionado could fail to notice, or all of the above. Searle beautifully avoids these problems as he explains and criticizes six contemporary accounts of the scientific question of how the brain manages to give us thinking. What conscious thinking is and how it works is a central question in contemporary psychology, biology, and medicine. Searle is an excellent guide through complex arguments, leading the reader forward with a minimum of jargon. No special knowledge of philosophy or science is required. And if Searle is on the wrong track or makes mistakes along the way, certainly any mistakes are not obvious. This is a difficult book, but it repays reading not just because you will come away with a better understanding of one the all-time great scientific questions, but because it gives you a chance to see how a subtle and ingenious thinker approaches a seemingly impossible problem.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Mystery of Consciousness

October 23, 2012

The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson

OPENING LINE:

On a fine June weekend in 2007, in the verdant reaches of Northern New Hampshire, I decided to change the world.

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Are you a word nerd? Have you ever driven across the country with someone you love? Both?!? Then The Great Typo Hunt should be on your reading list. The premise is simple. Deck conceived a mission to save the world one grammatical correction at a time. He recruited Herson and a couple sidekicks and they set out on an epic road trip. Their plan was to circle the United States locating typos on signs and when possible correcting them. They philosophize about grammar’s importance in communication and wax eloquent about the elixir of correction that is a mainstay of their typo correction kit. But as seriously as they take their quest, they are also really funny and we are in on all the jokes. The result is a really funny travel book about grammar. It is Strunk & White meets National Lampoon’s vacation and I found it a pure pleasure.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Great Typo Hunt

September 25, 2012

The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

GREAT LINES:

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of seeing a horse bound for slaughter will attest that the animals seem to sense when they are hitting the end of the road. Sometimes, horses react with fear, feet scrambling for purchase on bare wooden floors… other times, they just look haunted, as if they know where they are headed.

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In 1956, Dutch immigrant and WWII survivor Harry de Leyer, now a riding instructor at a private girls school in New York, was looking for a “lesson horse” when he arrived late at a horse auction. The only horses left were the “kills”: horses not purchased now on their way to become dog food and glue. He took a chance on a big, friendly, homely grey gelding, whom his children christened Snowman. Harry’s superior horsemanship skills, kind heart and recognition of the flea-bitten grey’s jumping talents resulted in the biggest Cinderella story in horse show jumping. Snowman won the Triple Crown of jumping, beating European champions and expensive American thoroughbreds. It’s a great story, and one I remember reading in an anthology of horse stories when I was a horse-crazy tween. Letts has done extensive research and interviews, and it shows. Black and white photos throughout are a definite plus. It’s not the most elegant sports writing you’ll ever read, but Letts’ love for horses and the sport shines through. Even though you know how the story will end, the showdown at Madison Square Garden is a real cliffhanger and Snowman’s death? Three hankies. Letts’ analysis of the importance of the horse in American society and the radical changes of that role due to industrialization and urban sprawl provides fascinating and relevant background that helps to explain Snowman’s appeal. Not just for horse lovers!

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Eighty-Dollar Champion

August 29, 2012

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White

GREAT LINE:

The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak noun out of a tight place.

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This book is a short masterpiece. Although it began as notes for a 1919 writing class at Columbia University and was first published as a book in 1959, it is still a standard for college writing courses. If you want to write with clarity and conviction, whether a quarterly report or timeless literature like Charlotte’s Web (yes, that E. B. White), this is the place to start. The first part guides you through basic usage, composition, form, and misused words and expressions. The second part makes this a great book. Here, condensed into a couple dozen rules, are what all great writing has in common, what makes it so clear, effective, moving, and to the point. It’s all you need.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Elements of Style

August 26, 2012

Making Rounds With Oscar by David Dosa

GREAT LINES:

People tell me they would find my job depressing, but I’m always a little puzzled by that. Looking at my patients and their families, I have a remarkable view not just of lives well lived, but of deep commitment and love.

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This is a true story about a cat named Oscar who lives among the residents of Steere House, a nursing and rehabilitation center. He is a seemingly normal cat, cantankerous and stand-offish most of the time, but he has a special gift. Often he knows when a resident is approaching their final hours, at which point he will hop onto their bed and keep vigil. Dr. David Dosa ponders these mysterious displays of comfort, and weaves them into personal anecdotes about the residents, many of them living with Alzheimer’s. A very touching and charming book – a great read for everyone!

Check the BPL catalog for this title: Making Rounds with Oscar

August 14, 2012

Alice’s Piano by Melissa Müller and Reinhard Piechocki

GREAT LINES:

Music makes us humans rich. It is the revelation of the divine. It takes us to paradise.


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Alice Herz-Sommer, born 1903 in Prague, is the oldest living Holocaust survivor. She is also an extraordinary pianist and teacher, whose skills were exploited by the Nazis to give concerts for prisoners at the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she and her family were imprisoned. Holocaust memoirs abound, but what makes Alice’s story unique is her unquenchable zest for and delight in life, and her fierce devotion to protecting her only child from the harsh realities of camp existence. Also unusual in many Holocaust memoirs, Alice’s life post-Liberation occupies nearly a third of the book, as she attempts to re-establish a life for herself and her son (her husband and mother died in the camps), first unsuccessfully in Prague before moving to Israel and finally London, where she now lives. There are many exceptional and unexpected turns to Alice’s life, but musicians in general and pianists in particular will love the section in which many of Chopin’s horrendously difficult and beautiful Etudes are analyzed for their musical content and how it reflects the events of Alice’s life at the time. 16 pages of photographs show Alice’s family, friends and career highlights but the most touching images in the book are a series of 4 photographs of Alice at age 102, listening to music in her home in Hampstead. She is thoughtfully and actively engaged with the music. The final photo shows her leaning back, hands on her cheeks, eyes closed, and a brilliant smile of rapturous delight. Inspirational to pianists, certainly, but it’s an unforgettable and uplifting story that will engage many.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: Alice’s Piano

August 1, 2012

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter

GREAT LINE:

Small rooms and houses discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.


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For the last 30 years of his life Leonardo da Vinci kept notes on the various questions and ideas that attracted his fantastic mind. These notes eventually reached 5,000 pages – almost all written backwards and illustrated with sketches. He may have planned to publish them, but at his death they were sold, lost, stolen, and misplaced. It wasn’t until the 19th century that scholars were able to publish them as a single work, arranging the notes by subject and calling it The Notebooks. So this book is literally just notes, some of them a single sentence and some a few pages long, grouped into broad subjects. The first volume covers how to be an artist, including drawing (it’s best to stand away from what you’re drawing at a distance three times its height,) light and shade, perspective, colors, human anatomy for artists, botany for painters, paints, and how to criticize your own work. The second volume covers science, including geology (fossils on mountaintops prove mountains have been lifted from the ocean floor,) weather, astronomy, hydraulics, inventions, war, and engineering. This is probably not a book to read all at once, but rather to dip into now and then, and reflect on the amazing thought and curiosity of one of the world’s greatest geniuses. It is also interesting to see how da Vinci did not spend his time. There is nothing about politics even though he was born in the Florence of Machiavelli; no artist’s gossip, not even about Michelangelo; only rare criticism of other people’s ideas; and – needless to say – nothing about the occult.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

July 24, 2012

Encountering God in the Margins by Aidan Donaldson

GREAT LINES:

Quite simply, to become immersed is to say ‘no’ to the way the world is and begin to create a new world built not on injustice, greed, individualism and passivity, but rather a world based on justice, community, solidarity, action and love of the other. In short, immersion is to help the world stand the correct way up.

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This book surprised me in that I don’t usually pick out a book on this subject, but when I was browsing, the cover photograph of a man’s dusty bare feet drew me in. I’m glad it did, because I was rewarded by a smart, sincere first-hand account of an immersion volunteer’s experience in Zambia. Donaldson’s depiction of the impoverished strikes a perfect balance – there is none of that coddling tone sometimes taken when discussing the poor. He tackles the subjects of immersion versus volunteer tourism, injustice, the marginalized, and how existing systems create poverty. He challenges one’s privilege and inaction, but he adopts a fair stance towards everyone including the wealthy, so the book doesn’t read as heavy-handed or preachy to me. Read it!

Check the BPL catalog for this title: Encountering God in the Margins
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