BookClique

Sometimes it takes a long time to fully absorb a tragedy, and that’s certainly the case for me and the September 11,2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.  I vividly remember the day, being at work, having children in ‘lockdowns’ at school and being worried about my husband’s colleagues and their air travel plans.  Joel Meyerowitz’s photographic archive, Aftermath, brought some closure for me and provides a visual archive of the cleanup of the site.  The large-size, 7 pound photography book documents Meyerwitz’s visits to the site from September 23, 2001 to June 21, 2002.  I didn’t realize how many other buildings were lost in the attack and how many adjacent personnel were injured or killed.  With its pictures of wounded buildings over the several block site, I could begin to get some sense of the scale.  Meyerowitz’ spare commentary details many of the challenges he had visiting the site.  I am so glad he did; and that the resultant exhibits of his photographic archive have toured world-wide and are available for casual or historical study.

Amy P.

Filed under: Non Fiction by stacyw
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If you enjoy reading about strong self reliant people, you should read River House by Sarahlee Lawrence.  Lawrence is a white water river guide and has traveled the world and worked on some of the toughest and most remote rivers.  Like a lot of young people though, it took living elsewhere to make her pine for the area she grew up in (rural Oregon). She decides she wants to build a house on her parents’ ranch and returns home to do so.  When Lawrence sets out to build a house, she goes about it in a much harder way than most people.  She manually digs her foundation with a shovel, has logs delivered and scrapes the bark off of each one by hand.  By the end of the book her house is finished and she has literally done almost everything herself with a little help sometimes from her dad.  Speaking of her dad, he is the only annoying thing about this book.  Lawrence and her family live a hard life on the ranch with endless physical labor and extreme weather.  This was a life her dad married into when he got hitched to her mom.  Well, he constantly whines about the hard life he’s leading and all he wants to do its lay on a beach, surf and smoke dope.   I got to the point where I just wanted to scream at him “well, leave already!” and I was just reading the book, not living with him.  Finally at the end of the book he does leave and moves to a beach in Mexico.  I’m sure Lawrence and her mom (no slacker herself) are much happier working the ranch without him around.  This book is a tribute to manual labor and the satisfaction of sometimes choosing to do things a harder and slower way in this world where the fastest and easiest way seems to be valued by most.

Stacy W.

Filed under: Non Fiction by stacyw
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I love to read books about war, both fiction and nonfiction.  And who can get enough of the Civil War?  It is literally unimaginable how many men (and animals) were slaughtered, homes and crops destroyed.  How did America recover from it?  Over 600,000 dead!  A while back, I read a starred review of Ralph Peters’ Cain at Gettysburg and when I saw a sticker on the cover of the book that stated it “surpasses Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels (which won the Pulitzer), I thought “no way”.  However, the account of the multi day battle, of the personalities from Meade to Lee to Hancock to Pettigrew to the lowliest soldiers was top notch.  Peters has researched the Battle of Gettysburg for more than 50 years and it shows.  War is hell and he does not gloss over the nasty parts.  What would’ve happened if pampered idiots hadn’t used political connections to get military ranks they were ill qualified for?  If they did what was best instead of thinking of their egos and political futures?  We’ll never know and anyway these travesties certainly are not unique to the Civil War.  I’m not sure that I would rank this book above any Shaara (Michael or Jeff) war book but I would definitely rank it up there with them.  One odd note is that when I read the author’s notes I discovered that Ralph Peters also wrote some Civil War mysteries I have enjoyed under the pen name of Owen Parry!  I definitely recommend this book and after reading his notes would encourage him to tackle writing a definitive biography of George Meade.

Stacy W.

Filed under: Fiction, Historical by stacyw
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Helen Dunmore’s The Betrayal tells the story of Andrei and Anna, a married couple trying to live in Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Their town, Leningrad, has just survived a siege where millions of the city’s inhabitants died trying to hold out against Hitler’s German forces during World War II.  Leningrad did not fall to the Germans but it paid a horrible price.  Imagine walking down the street and seeing random corpses everywhere-frozen to park benches, sticking out of snow drifts.  Standing in line for hours and hours for little bits of food.  Sleeping at night with as many people in bed with you and as many clothes and outerwear on as possible so you hopefully will not freeze to death overnight.  When the nightmare siege ends, a new nightmare begins.  Stalin rules with an iron fist and citizens must watch what they say and do every second they’re awake.  Neighbors and co-workers inform on each other, family members denounce one another.  In this atmosphere, Andrei, a doctor, is asked  to treat the only son of an important government official.  The child’s disease is a very serious one and Andrei is secretly advised by friends to disappear or call in sick rather than treat him.  Anna has just discovered she is pregnant and the last thing he needs is to be taken from her.  He gets involved anyway and you’ll have to read the book to find out the consequences.  When I  get frustrated about our country’s politics, I can always read some historical fiction about regular life in the Soviet Union and realize things could be worse!

Stacy W.

Filed under: Fiction by stacyw
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I have seen shows like “The Dog Whisperer” with Cesar Millan, and wondered when would they put someone in the limelight to help feline owners? Enter Jackson Galaxy with his book  Cat Daddy!  I had seen the television show, “My Cat from Hell,” on Animal Planet a few times. I enjoyed the idea of a show about a nontraditional cat behaviorist helping owners work with their pets to live together in harmony. When I saw the book Cat Daddy, I knew I had to read it.  As predicted, the book had some excellent tips to help cat owners. I found myself trying out the slow-blink “Cat I Love You” technique with my own two cats.  A word of caution, if you are expecting this book to be as light and fluffy as our feline friends, it isn’t. Galaxy is very raw and honest about his personal life in this book.  Galaxy explains his struggles with the addictions of prescription and illegal drugs, alcohol, and food. He explains what he learned while working in an animal shelter, and his experiences with the unexpected, love, and the loss of his best friend.  I recommend this book to cat lovers who are open minded enough to read about the low points in human and animal lives. Galaxy’s story is inspiring, and makes me realize, even more, how precious the bond is between animals and humans.

Marlene K.

Filed under: Non Fiction by stacyw
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The Books They Gave Me: True Stories of Life, Love, and Lit  by Jen Adams is a bibliophile’s delight!  The book is very well constructed and beautifully designed.  The author is a freelance writer and served as a founding contributing editor of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine,  she moved to New York to be closer to The Strand.  She is at work on a variety of projects, including a zombie novel for middle-grades readers.  Following a trend in book publishing, this title extracts some of the best posts from Jen’s blog, TheBooksTheyGaveMe, which is still very active.  The book (and blog’s) premise is that books make meaningful gifts that can mark stages in the lives of the givers and recipients.  200 titles are featured here with entries featuring each book cover and the brief posts that tell the story of how each gift title fits into the recipient’s life.  For my tastes, too many of the tales are sad (my books tell happier stories!).  What would your gift books say about you?  Is your favorite title included?  Adams blogs sporadically at Jen-Adams.com.

Amy P.

Filed under: Non Fiction by stacyw
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A photography book brings with it the opportunity for the reader/viewer to slow down and focus visually.  Nowhere is this experience richer than when exploring the works of Joel Meyerowitz, color photographer pioneer and magician with light.  Tuscany: Inside the Light, a record of this landscape and light over the course of a year is a visual masterpiece of 79 color plates arranged by season.  The plates are occasionally interspersed with text written by Meyerowitz’s wife, the novelist and playwright, Maggie Barrett.  Her writing illuminates the photographs and also stands on its own in terms of a powerful lyricism.  My only quibble with the book’s design is that the names Meyerowitz gave to each photograph are only included at the end.  I would have greatly enjoyed having that information adjacent to the plates.  Highly recommended for visual viewing and as a prompt for serious landscape photography.  Tuscany: Inside the Light could also be used as a tool for writing prompts with Barrett’s text as exemplary guides.

Amy P.

Filed under: Non Fiction by stacyw
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The JIF (Juvenile Illustrated Fiction) Collection at TCPL is a treasure trove of
provocative titles.  JIF may also be defined as ‘picture books for older audiences’ and I would like to suggest that these are great titles for adult to enjoy reading aloud and sharing as well as for families with school-aged children.  My eye was caught recently by a display title, The Greatest Skating Race.  Written by Louise Borden and illustrated by Niki Daly, it tells the fictional tale of some Dutch families during World War II and how one young man’s skating abilities provide an escape avenue to Belgium for two Jewish Children.  Daly’s brown palette nicely captures the look and temper of occupied Holland.  I can still hear the swish, swish, of the skates on the canal!

Amy P.

Filed under: Children's by stacyw
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I am attracted to the settings in novels, and very much so when a book is set in a familiar place.  In this case, Vicki Delany’s More than Sorrow, is set in Prince Edward County, an island county in the province of Ontario Canada.  Now a very popular area for country homes for Toronto’s rich and famous, it was my grandmother’s respite area for many years and I am very familiar with its highways and byways and its United Empire Loyalist history.  Delany, a Toronto systems analyst, turned novelist mines both the UEL tradition and devises a contemporary story whose protagonist, journalist Hanna Manning, is recuperating at her sister’s farm after sustaining brain injury while covering the war in Afghanistan.  There is even a nearby Afghan refugee and a Taliban-inspired sub-plot!  For me, the time-twisting UEL story was the best part of this book, and I hope that Delany writes some straight historical fiction set in this lovely part of the land I call home.  In addition to this stand-alone title, Delany is also the author of the Constable Molly Smith books, set in Trafalgar, British Columbia.

Amy P.

Filed under: Fiction, Mystery by stacyw
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My new favorite magazine is Mental Floss, whose tag line is “Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix”. This is a fun read filled with all kinds of random facts. The magazine covers topics about everything from Einstein to Coffee. If you like quirky information then you’ll appreciate this magazine. If you love learning interesting things or maybe you just want to come off sounding smart at parties – Mental Floss is for you. In November’s issue, the Left Brain/Right Brain section features an article on Bill Cosby which is,  in part, a wonderful review of Cosby’s early comedic albums; the Go Mental section takes us to West Africa where Togolese women rule the textile industry; and ‘Scatterbrained’ explores the controversial subject of candy. Whether you love literature and trivia, are into science and history, or just curious about how many green beans are served every Thanksgiving, you will undoubtedly find many things to enjoy in each issue.

Tia L.

Filed under: Uncategorized by stacyw
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