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
Monday, July 2, 2007
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!"
Available at Stewart Library in Grinnell
"Kiran loves it!"
Allison Amphlett '08 read and recommends ....
On order for Burling Library
Cheryl Neubert read and recommends ....
McCourt, Frank. Teacher Man: a Memoir
Smith Memorial LA 2317.M36.A3 2005
Smith Memorial LA 2317.M36.A3 2005
Sunday, July 1, 2007
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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