Munro, Alice. View from Castle Rock: Stories. New York: Random House, 2006.
Smith Memorial PR9199.3.M8 V54 2006
Review by Tim Spurgin
I can see why people had trouble with The View from Castle Rock. The collection begins with a curious preface, in which Munro seems to apologize for bringing its contents together, and then the book proceeds to break itself in two. The first half, as you may know, is set in the past. It concerns Munro’s ancestors, taking us through several generations before ending with the story of her own oddly matched parents. The second half focuses on the development of a single individual—the author herself—following her from girlhood to early old age. There is an imbalance here, then, and at times a kind of awkwardness too.
That doesn’t bother me, though. I’m a Munro junkie—I picked up the habit from my mother, I think—and so, while I can’t put Castle Rock up there with Runaway, I won’t hesitate to recommend it. My advice is: Don’t worry too much about that preface, and don’t be afraid to jump ahead to the central piece in the first section—it’s the title story, where Munro imagines her family’s trip across the ocean in 1818. After that, it’s all good. Other high points? From the first half, “Working for a Living,” the one about her parents; and from the second, “Fathers,” “Lying Under the Apple Tree,” and “Hired Girl.” In these pieces, Munro returns to familiar themes—sex, class, other people—and works her usual magic. For this last little bit of summertime, you couldn’t hope to do much better.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845
Crew, Linda. Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press : Distributed by the University of Washington Press, c2005
Reviewed by Donna Hoeksema
Heart for Any Fate gives a more balanced view of all of the people involved in an early move from Missouri to Oregon. It is written from the perspective of a young 17 year old traveling with her extended family. It is in the historical fiction category with different insights into the Indians, buffaloes, soldiers, and responsibility. It was a quick read (since I could do it during a busy vacation out to Colorado --- traveling some of the same paths mentioned in the book).
3rd floor PS3553.R439 H4x 2005
Reviewed by Donna Hoeksema
Heart for Any Fate gives a more balanced view of all of the people involved in an early move from Missouri to Oregon. It is written from the perspective of a young 17 year old traveling with her extended family. It is in the historical fiction category with different insights into the Indians, buffaloes, soldiers, and responsibility. It was a quick read (since I could do it during a busy vacation out to Colorado --- traveling some of the same paths mentioned in the book).
3rd floor PS3553.R439 H4x 2005
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Rebecca Stuhr just read ...
Ha Jin's Waiting. New York: Pantheon Books, 1999 3rd floor PS3560.I6 W34 1999.
This novel takes place before, during, and after the cultural revolution in China. A doctor, who ashamed of his country wife's bound feet and simple ways, leaves her in the country as he works as a military doctor in a hospital in the city. There he meets a military nurse. Within the strictures of the military guidelines the two begin a close friendship. For seventeen years the doctor attempts to divorce his wife so that he can marry the nurse. This novel received the National Book Award for Fiction.
She is also reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusack. 3rd floor PR9619.4.Z87 B6x 2006 and
Consequences by Penelope Lively. Smith Memorial PR6062.I89 C58 2007b
This novel takes place before, during, and after the cultural revolution in China. A doctor, who ashamed of his country wife's bound feet and simple ways, leaves her in the country as he works as a military doctor in a hospital in the city. There he meets a military nurse. Within the strictures of the military guidelines the two begin a close friendship. For seventeen years the doctor attempts to divorce his wife so that he can marry the nurse. This novel received the National Book Award for Fiction.
She is also reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusack. 3rd floor PR9619.4.Z87 B6x 2006 and
Consequences by Penelope Lively. Smith Memorial PR6062.I89 C58 2007b
The Next 25 Years: The New Supreme Court and What It Means for Americans
The Next 25 Years: The New Supreme Court and What It Means for Americans
Garbus, Martin. The Next 25 Years: The New Supreme Court and What It Means for Americans (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007).
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Legendary First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus who has represented Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, and Andrei Sakharov et al. has authored an urgent cautionary work. Proceeding from the observation by Alexis de Toqueville that in the United States political questions are almost always transformed into judicial questions, Garbus cogently makes a straight forward argument about the likely future of the United States Supreme Court.
Whereas the Rehnquist Court has prepared the way, the new Roberts Court will continue the job of reversing seventy years of American jurisprudence. The Federalist Society goon squad of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy acting as an unelected, undemocratic elite are committed to squashing acts of Congress. The political agenda of the Roberts Court is to further limit the powers of Congress, make the states more powerful, repudiate precedent (where tactically necessary), seek a return to the halcyon days of a Lockner era laissez-faire Darwinian economics, and to put racial minorities back were they were socially and legally fifty years ago.
Garbus argues that the Gang of Five while pretending that they are “originalists,” who seek to keep the Court removed from politics, are in reality a little less than faithful (“originalists” e.g. Bush v. Gore) and a little more than political. Further, Garbus maintains that while the Supreme Court has always been political, the problem is that the Court is currently infected with the wrong kind of politics.
Garbus, Martin. The Next 25 Years: The New Supreme Court and What It Means for Americans (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007).
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Legendary First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus who has represented Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, and Andrei Sakharov et al. has authored an urgent cautionary work. Proceeding from the observation by Alexis de Toqueville that in the United States political questions are almost always transformed into judicial questions, Garbus cogently makes a straight forward argument about the likely future of the United States Supreme Court.
Whereas the Rehnquist Court has prepared the way, the new Roberts Court will continue the job of reversing seventy years of American jurisprudence. The Federalist Society goon squad of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy acting as an unelected, undemocratic elite are committed to squashing acts of Congress. The political agenda of the Roberts Court is to further limit the powers of Congress, make the states more powerful, repudiate precedent (where tactically necessary), seek a return to the halcyon days of a Lockner era laissez-faire Darwinian economics, and to put racial minorities back were they were socially and legally fifty years ago.
Garbus argues that the Gang of Five while pretending that they are “originalists,” who seek to keep the Court removed from politics, are in reality a little less than faithful (“originalists” e.g. Bush v. Gore) and a little more than political. Further, Garbus maintains that while the Supreme Court has always been political, the problem is that the Court is currently infected with the wrong kind of politics.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Barry Byrne has a list of books to recommend ...
Barry writes,
Currently, I am reading Single by Judy Ford. (Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent. Avon, Mass. : Adams Media, 2004.)
My favorite books are Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson (New York: Knopf, 1998--1st floor B72 .W54 1998), and The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday, 1988--1st floor oversize BL304 .C36 1988 and six part video in the Listening Room--J771).
Within the past year, I have really liked Setting the Table (Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006) by Danny Meyer
The Audacity of Hope (The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, c2006--2nd floor E901.1.O23 A3 2006) by Barack Obama
Eisenhower on Leadership (Eisenhower on Leadership: Ike's Enduring Lessons in Total Victory Management. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass, 2006) by Alan Alexrod
The World is Flat (The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. HM846 .F74 2005) by Thomas Friedman
The Search (The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. New York : Portfolio, 2005). by John Battelle
Let My People Go Surfing (Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. New York: Penguin Press, 2005) by Yvon Chouinard
E=mc2 (E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. New York: Walker, c2000. --Science Library QC73.8.C6 B63x 2000) by David Bodanis
Einstein's Heroes (Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). by Robyn Arianrhod
Lies at the Altar (Lies at the Altar: The Truth about Great Marriages. New York: Hyperion, 2006) by Robin Smith
My Einstein (My Einstein: Essays by Twenty-Four of the World's Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy. New York : Pantheon Books, 2006). Edited by John Brockman...
Currently, I am reading Single by Judy Ford. (Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent. Avon, Mass. : Adams Media, 2004.)
My favorite books are Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson (New York: Knopf, 1998--1st floor B72 .W54 1998), and The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday, 1988--1st floor oversize BL304 .C36 1988 and six part video in the Listening Room--J771).
Within the past year, I have really liked Setting the Table (Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006) by Danny Meyer
The Audacity of Hope (The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, c2006--2nd floor E901.1.O23 A3 2006) by Barack Obama
Eisenhower on Leadership (Eisenhower on Leadership: Ike's Enduring Lessons in Total Victory Management. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass, 2006) by Alan Alexrod
The World is Flat (The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. HM846 .F74 2005) by Thomas Friedman
The Search (The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. New York : Portfolio, 2005). by John Battelle
Let My People Go Surfing (Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. New York: Penguin Press, 2005) by Yvon Chouinard
E=mc2 (E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. New York: Walker, c2000. --Science Library QC73.8.C6 B63x 2000) by David Bodanis
Einstein's Heroes (Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). by Robyn Arianrhod
Lies at the Altar (Lies at the Altar: The Truth about Great Marriages. New York: Hyperion, 2006) by Robin Smith
My Einstein (My Einstein: Essays by Twenty-Four of the World's Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy. New York : Pantheon Books, 2006). Edited by John Brockman...
Gretchen Revie is reading ...
George Eliot's Middlemarch in the Penguin Classics edition edited by Rosemary Ashton.
Find a copy on the third floor of Burling: PR4662.A2 C37 1986
Gretchen is a former Grinnell College librarian and is now a librarian at Lawrence University. She has twenty pages left to read and next on her list is Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill published by Soho. This is from Cotterill's series of novels that take place in Laos and feature Dr. Siri Paiboun. You'll find this at a public library near you.
Find a copy on the third floor of Burling: PR4662.A2 C37 1986
Gretchen is a former Grinnell College librarian and is now a librarian at Lawrence University. She has twenty pages left to read and next on her list is Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill published by Soho. This is from Cotterill's series of novels that take place in Laos and feature Dr. Siri Paiboun. You'll find this at a public library near you.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Sheryl Bissen has been reading and recommends ....
Jeffrey Kluger. Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. New York: GP Putnam, 2004
Splendid Solution is the 2007 All Iowa Reads book. All Iowa Reads is a program developed by the Iowa Center for the Book to encourage Iowans statewide to read and talk about a single title in the same year. Libraries and other local organizations are holding discussions of the title and sponsoring related events. http://www.iowacenterforthebook.org/air
As part of the 2007 program, the Iowa Center for the Book is collecting stories from Iowans about what they remember of the impact of polio and the development of the polio vaccine. Read what Iowans remember. http://www.iowapoliostories.org/
Science Library QR31.S25 K58 2004
And
Masha Hamilton. The Camel Bookmobile. New York: HarperCollins, 2007
Masha Hamilton will be the banquet speaker at the Iowa Library Association Annual Conference on October 11, 2007 in Coralville.
Read more about Masha Hamilton and the real Camel Bookmobile operated by the Kenya National Library Service. www.mashahamilton.com
The Declaration of Independence: A Global History
Armitage, David . The Declaration of Independence: A Global History.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Professor Armitage’s, The Declaration of Independence is a terse examination of that hallowed
document placed within both a transhistorical and transnational context. The Declaration was an event, a document, and the beginning of a much imitated genre. While the founding fathers sought a legal method of establishing the United States a member in good standing of the established international order, and avoiding the unseemliness of a call for colonial liberation, the document has taken on a life of its own.
Thomas Jefferson and the other members of the committee charged with drafting the Declaration were operating in a political environment without any concrete precedence. They attempted to straddle the twin rails of natural and positive law. After the first half century following its publication the Declarationlargely passed into positive law (allowing for Abraham Lincoln’s dual interpretation of the document as having one message in 1776 and another message for the future). Like one of the imported bottles of wine in Jefferson’s cellar the Declaration has aged well. Edward Gibbon commenting at the time of French diplomatic recognition (1778) remarked: “…the dark agents of the English Colonies, who founded
their pretended independence [did so] on nothing but the boldness of their revolt.”
The Declaration has served as the model for political movements justifying their existence as varied as the Vietnamese nationalists following Ho Chi Minh in 1945, the Haitian Declaration of Independence in 1804, to numerous documents in Central and South America. The irony, of course, is that whether it was Simon Bolivar or Ho Chi Minh seeking political legitimacy Americans have almost universally rejected these efforts as something less worthy than the original.
Also by David Armitage:
The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800
E18.82 .B75, 2002.
The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
JV1011 .A75, 2000.
Milton and Republicanism
PR3592 .P64 M55, 1995
Theories of Empire, 1450-1800
D210 .T45, 1998
A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707
JA84 .G7 U55, 1995.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Professor Armitage’s, The Declaration of Independence is a terse examination of that hallowed
document placed within both a transhistorical and transnational context. The Declaration was an event, a document, and the beginning of a much imitated genre. While the founding fathers sought a legal method of establishing the United States a member in good standing of the established international order, and avoiding the unseemliness of a call for colonial liberation, the document has taken on a life of its own.
Thomas Jefferson and the other members of the committee charged with drafting the Declaration were operating in a political environment without any concrete precedence. They attempted to straddle the twin rails of natural and positive law. After the first half century following its publication the Declarationlargely passed into positive law (allowing for Abraham Lincoln’s dual interpretation of the document as having one message in 1776 and another message for the future). Like one of the imported bottles of wine in Jefferson’s cellar the Declaration has aged well. Edward Gibbon commenting at the time of French diplomatic recognition (1778) remarked: “…the dark agents of the English Colonies, who founded
their pretended independence [did so] on nothing but the boldness of their revolt.”
The Declaration has served as the model for political movements justifying their existence as varied as the Vietnamese nationalists following Ho Chi Minh in 1945, the Haitian Declaration of Independence in 1804, to numerous documents in Central and South America. The irony, of course, is that whether it was Simon Bolivar or Ho Chi Minh seeking political legitimacy Americans have almost universally rejected these efforts as something less worthy than the original.
Also by David Armitage:
The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800
E18.82 .B75, 2002.
The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
JV1011 .A75, 2000.
Milton and Republicanism
PR3592 .P64 M55, 1995
Theories of Empire, 1450-1800
D210 .T45, 1998
A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707
JA84 .G7 U55, 1995.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Richard Fyffe recommends the following books
all read recently:
Sandra Braman. Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. Cambridge: MIT Press
(recently ordered for the libraries)
Michael Ondaatje. Divisadero. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007
(recently ordered for the libraries)
Charles Wright. Scar Tissue: Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006
3rd floor PS3573.R52 S33 2006
Sandra Braman. Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. Cambridge: MIT Press
(recently ordered for the libraries)
Michael Ondaatje. Divisadero. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007
(recently ordered for the libraries)
Charles Wright. Scar Tissue: Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006
3rd floor PS3573.R52 S33 2006
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