The Assault on Reason

Gore, Al. The Assault on Reason. New York : Penguin Press, 2007

Review by Mark Schneider

This is a really important book that I am afraid will largely get
ignored. In his own wordy and repetitive way, Al Gore makes a very
persuasive case that American democracy and the US Constitution are
in serious peril. Unfortunately he tarnishes his message by spending
too much time arguing that television is a root cause and that the
Internet will be our savior. These claims may have some truth to
them, but they are rather speculative. However, I find his arguments
about changes in the ways of politics in general and Washington in
specific very compelling and frightening. Equally frightening is the
extent to which we are sacrificing our liberties willingly in the
interest of security. And Gore has some of the best credentials in
the business to document these changes, having spent significant time
in the House, in the Senate, and in the White House. Not only that,
but as the son of a senator, he has some continuity of experience
back to before the Second World War. Skim or skip the introduction,
conclusion and chapter nine, but please read the rest!

1st floor Smith Memorial E902 .G67 2007

Ben Weyle '07 spent the summer in Grinnell reading

Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. New York: Random House, 2000
3rd floor PS3553.H15 A82 2000

Ben highly recommends this book.

The Grinnell Book Review wishes Ben a fond farewell and a very good year in Washington, D.C.

Other books by Chabon in the Burling collection:

The Final Solution: a Story of Detection
PS3553.H15 F56 2004 (Smith Memorial collection)
A Model World and Other Stories
3rd floor PS3553.H15 M95 1991
Summerland
3rd floor PS3553.H15 S8x 2002
Werewolves in Their Youth: Stories
3rd floor PS3553.H15 W4 1999
Wonderboys
3rd floor PS3553.H15 W66 1995

When Martin Stuhr-Rommereim isn't engaging with electronic gadgets he is reading ...

Elie Wiesel. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1960.
D811.5 .W4923 1960

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007
Smith Memorial Collection DT 516.818 .B43 A3 2007

Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2004.

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

This week Farai Rusinga is reading . . .

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. Edited by Louise M. Anthony.

Available at the college book store.

Helen Stuhr-Rommereim is reading during the summer ...

when she isn't hard at work at the Print Study Room and St's Rest.

Kazuo Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go. NY: Vintage,
PR6059.S5 N48 2005

Kazuo Ishiguro. When We Were Orphans. NY: Knopf, 2000.
PR6059.S5 W47 2000

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
DT516.828.B43 A3 2007

Rob Clower read this book at Grinnell's Thursday's Music in the Park

Carroll, Ruth and Latrobe. Tough Enough. NY: H.Z. Walck, 1954.

Rob first read this book when he was four years old. "Just reread it for the first time and it is good."

Molly Dahlberg '07 is reading and recommends ....

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. NY: Knopf, 1987
PS3563.O8749 B4 1987

(The Grinnell College Book Review also recommends the 1998 movie: Listening Room B4125 )

Ramsey, Guthrie P. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
ML3556 .R32 2003

Cleland, John. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Dell, 1982.
PR3348.C65 M45 1982
(this edition of this famous 18th century novel comes with an introduction "for modern readers"!)

Crosby is reading and recommends ...

Smith, Martin Cruz. Gorky Park. New York: Random House, 1981.

This novel features a reluctant detective and it is solidly situated in the cold war.

PS3569.M5377 G6 1981

Crosby's favorite novel is Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. Available in a "Yearling" edition NY: Dell.
Brief description: When a twelve-year-old orphan comes to live with her austere and wealthy Aunt Polly, her philosophy of gladness brings happiness to the aunt and unloved members of the community.

Crosby writes that Pollyanna's philosophy is mistakenly reduced to mindless optimism. But, Pollyanna doesn't always find it easy to be happy. This novel was originally published in 1913 and is available at Burling Library. PS3531.O7342 P6 1913.

More Martin Cruz Smith books available at Burling:
See the libraries' author exhibit for more on Martin Cruz Smith

TITLE        Death by espionage : intriguing stories of betrayal and deception
CALL #       PN6071.S64 D43 1999.

TITLE        December 6 : a novel
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 D4 2002.


TITLE        Gorky Park
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 G6 1981.


TITLE        Havana Bay : a novel .
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 H38 1999b.



TITLE        Polar Star
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 P65 1989.



TITLE        Red Square
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 R44 1992.

TITLE        Rose
CALL #      PS3569.M5377 R67x 2000

TITLE        Stallion Gate
CALL  #      PS3569.M5377 S7x 1987

TITLE        Wolves eat dogs : a novel
CALL #       PS3569.M5377 W65 2004.

Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption

Savarese, Ralph James. Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption. New York: Other Press, 2007

Review by Michael Cavanagh
This review originally appeared at Amazon.com Michael Cavanagh gave the Libraries' permission to reprint it on this blog. This is a verbatim copy of that review.

I must declare an interest. Savarese is a faculty colleague of mine. I wouldn't normally write an Amazon review of a colleague's work, but this book is so compelling and inspiring that in the past week since I finished it I have all but stopped strangers on the street to tell about it. There are several reasons to read it. It is a well-informed, thought-provoking and very specific book about autism, of special interest to readers like me who knew about autism only from a distance. It is a close-up and very frank story of an unusual and admirable family. It is (as one of your reviewers put it) an adventure story whose subject is the discovery of a mind and soul and the emergence of a young man into the world. Yet one comes to feel that it is also about all of us. Best of all, it's a great read, a real page-turner, with a novel's power to keep you up until midnight asking youself "what next?"

Science Library RJ506.A9 S38 2007

Griffin, 9 years old, Son of Kevin, recommends...

"I'm listening to the audiobook version of The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. I'm on the third book. I think it's great and exciting and it has deathless warriors in it!"

Stewart Library has these and many other books by Lloyd Alexander;

The Prydain Chronicles:
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr
Taran Wanderer
The High King

All published NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Chris Guant has read and recommends ...

Shenk, Joshua Wolf. Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled his Greatness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2005

E457.2 .S47 2005

Nadelson Theodore. Trained to Kill: Soldiers at War. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005
U21.5 .N33 2005

Zinsser, William. On writing well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. New York: HarperCollins, c2006
PE1429 .Z5 2006

"I've read: The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier, and give it a two thumbs up." San Francisco: Harper, 2000.
PN2287.P57 A3 2000

Look for a review of Enemy combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar by Moazzam Begg with Victoria Brittain. New York: New Press, 2006

HV6432 .B44 2006

Katie Dunn has four books going at the same time ...

Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
PS3570.A48 Z46 2004

Savarese, Ralph. Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption. New York: Other Press, 2007.
Science Library RJ506.A9 S38 2007

Levy, David. Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age. New York: Arcade, 2001.
P214 .L48 2001

Freeman, Elizabeth. Head first HTML with CSS & XHTML. Sebastapol: O'Reilly
Science Library QA76.76.H94 F74 2006

Farai Rusinga '08 is reading a lot this summer ...

...and making good use of his proximity to books in the College's bookstore. He's reading:

Plato
Nietzsche
Sophocle's Antigone

Stop by the bookstore and ask Farai for reading recommendations.

Search for these authors in the libraries' catalog

Lindsey Taggart '08 is reading ...

Irving, John. A Son of the Circus. New York: Random House, 1994. 633 pages!

PS3559.R8 S64 1994

Sharon Clayton is reading ...

Adrian, Chris. The Children's Hospital. San Francisco: McSweeney's Books, 2006.

Smith Memorial PS 3551 .D75 C55x 2006

Randye Jones is reading and recommends ...

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. Edited by Sheree R. Thomas. New York: Warner Books, 2000.

Black Library PS 648 .S3 D37 2000

Russ Motta is reading several books at once covering a wide range of history. . .

Danziger, Danny and John Gillingham. 1215: The Year of the Magna Carta. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Manchester, William Raymond. Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific. Boston : Little, Brown, 1980. D767 .M18

McLaird, James D. Calamity Jane The Woman And The Legend . Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2005 (ordered for the library)

Shealey Sieck is reading ...

Bentley, Dawn, Heather Cahoon and Melanie Gerth. Goodnight Sweet Butterflies: A Colour Dreamland. Markham, Ont.: Scholastic Canada.


"This is one I don’t mind reading over and over. Wonderful colors and pleasant rhymes."

Catherine Rod is reading ....

Furst, Alan. The Foreign Correspondent. New York: Random House, 2006

"Fun! ... Well not really fun, but interesting!"

Catherine is just back from Ireland and is also reading Yeats. Search for books in the libraries catalog by Yeats.

Kevin Engel is rereading for at least the 15th time ....that makes it a recommendation

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday & Co., ©1930

Burling Library's edition has this call number: PR4620 .A2 1953

Beth Bohstedt is rereading ....

All of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling ....getting ready for the final installment this month!

Nancy Cadmus is reading ...

Baker, Kevin. Paradise Alley. New York : HarperCollins, 2002

PS3552.A43143 P37 2002

Lisa Adkins is reading articles from

The Smithsonian and National Geographic

More details to come!

Donna Hoeksema is reading all about ...

How to tan hides, thanks to the Iowa State Extension Service.

Kim Gilbert is reading...and it needs no recommendation!

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2003.

PR 6068 .093 H3627X 2003

"Getting ready for the movie!"

also

Carey, Janet Lee. Wenny Has Wings. New York: Atheneum Books, 2002

Available at Stewart Library

Phil Jones is reading and recommends

MacDonald, Mary Anne. Hedgehog Bakes a Cake. New York: Bantam Books, 1990

Available at Stewart Library in Grinnell

"Kiran loves it!"

Allison Amphlett '08 read and recommends ....

Åsne Seierstad. The Book Seller of Kabul. Translated by Ingrid Christophersen. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.


On order for Burling Library

Cheryl Neubert read and recommends ....

McCourt, Frank. Teacher Man: a Memoir

Smith Memorial LA 2317.M36.A3 2005

Falling Man

DeLillo, Don. Falling Man: a Novel. New York: Scribner, 2007.

This novel looks at life after 9/11 from the point of view of a survivor, his wife, and son. It begins as the towers are collapsing and ends a number of years later--the characters still in various states of recovery and collapse. Falling Man is a performance artist who appears unannounced over the streets of New York City wearing a business suit, suspended by a harness with one leg bent reenacting the photograph also known as Falling Man. Another thread of the story begins before 9/11 and follows the recruiting and training of one of the hijackers. Not overtly sentimental or melodramatic, DeLillo keeps the reader at some distance from his characters, allowing insight without voyeurism.

On order for Burling Library

Mayflower, A Story of Courage, Community, and War

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower, A Story of Courage, Community, and War. illustrated. 461 pp. New York: Viking.

Review by Walt Giersbach '61

Forget the history you were taught in the fifth grade about the Pilgrims. Disavow yourself of notions of English emigrants seeking religious liberty for all. Purge yourself of the anecdotal fraternity among black-suited Puritans and wampum-clad Native Americans.

Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, provides a well-researched and extensive history of what really happened in New England between 1620, when the Pilgrims "borrowed" the Indians’ winter supplies of corn, and 1676, when the last warriors were executed, pacified or sold as slaves.

His chronology of two cultures adapting to each other is thorough and insightful. While the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Pequot and other nations had their legends, it’s instructive to see in Mayflower how today’s Americans’ myths derive from the discovery of William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation,” publication of Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and President Lincoln turning Thanksgiving into a gluttonous holiday.

Philbrick’s thesis isn’t to denigrate the English in early America as to chronicle the mistakes that led to hostilities between tribes and settlers. “There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is [one] way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Philip’s War proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence.”

Philbrick’s history lesson is as true in 1676 as in 2007.

Burling Library F68 .P44 2006

Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America Boston

Cullen Murphy. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America Boston. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

Reviewed by T. Hatch

Cullen Murphy’s Are We Rome? is a concise look at how the “decline and fall” of the
Roman Empire can provide a set of cautionary lessons for the United States. An America invicta, suffering from a hubris born of a sense of exceptionalism and an intractable ignorance of the world, that is in need of some solid historical examples. In Murphy’s book the contrast of America to ancient Rome is viewed through an historicist’s binoculars set against the backdrop of the current war in Iraq.

Murphy sets about his task relying entirely upon secondary source documents. He argues that both Rome and Washington D.C., as centers of their respective political universes, were presided over by an elite that witnessed a growing divide between military and civil society where issues of what is in the public good versus what is of a private advantage were contentious questions frequently asked. Both ruling elites were hostage to a nationalcentric worldview that struggled with the problems associated with their borders and the impossibility of managing imperial projects that were of ever-expanding bigness.

Mr. Murphy concludes with a hopeful prescription for the future of the United States that he calls the Titus Livius Plan. If Americans (presumably thorough their elite leaders) would only cultivate an appreciation of the wider world, stop treating government as an necessary evil, fortify those institutions in society that promote assimilation, and ease the demands on the military our inevitable demise might be delayed. Whether any of Murphy’s remedies are politically possible is, at best, highly problematic.

Rubbish: the Archaeology of Garbage, Science Library TD793.3 .R38, 1992.
The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own,
BS680.W7 M87, 1998.

Children of Hurin

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Children of Hurin. Edited by Christopher Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

If you are a fan of Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy you'll want to read this book. With complex characters and a complicated moral world in which leaders (elves, men, dwarves...) struggle with the question of whether to act defensively or offensively against a great threat, this is an interesting, highly readable, and entertaining epic. It also features a fire breathing, though not undefeatable, dragon. For Tolkien fans, it will increase your knowledge of the first age of Middle Earth (while causing you to wonder how they ever made it to the third age...). As with the Silmarillion, we have Tolkien's son Christopher to thank for creating this book out of the unpublished writings of Tolkien. Beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee.

Not yet at the Library ... but soon.

You Remind Me of Me

Chaon, Dan. You Remind Me of Me. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004

Chaon teaches at Oberlin College. This book looks at the lives of two half-brothers. The oldest was born when the mother was just a teenager. He was adopted and grew up with loving if somewhat neglectful parents. The youngest stayed with the mother who was haunted by the loss of her first child and suffered from addictions and depression. Neglected and abused by his mother, this youngest brother was viciously attacked and nearly killed by the family dog. He lives with both deep physical and metaphorical scars. The narrative shifts from the mother's story to the stories of each brother and moves around in time. Chaon also wrote the short story collection Among the Missing.

Both books are in the libraries collection:
Among the Missing PS 3553 .H277 A8 2001
You Remind Me of Me PS 3553. H277 &68 2004

What are you reading this Summer?

What are you reading this summer? Let our community know--you can send just the title or write up a reason why you think we should read the book. Are there books you'd like the Grinnell College Libraries to be adding to our collection--let us know through this blog. Do you know about the libraries' Smith Memorial Collection? the libraries have a browsing collection of contemporary fiction and nonfiction. The Smith Memorial will be moving to the front of Burling, just around the corner from the entrance. This collection changes over time. The Smith Memorial is there year round and summer is a great time to check it out--and make suggestions!