Books Blog : reviews, books and reading

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

evillebibliophile@evpl — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:20:00 GMT

What a delicious piece of fiction! A truly precocious eleven year old girl delves into the gory details of a murder in her family's cucumber patch with the zeal and insight of Sherlock Holmes. The year is 1950 and Flavia de Luce lives in a giant manor house with her older sisters and her reclusive father. But Flavia is no ordinary little girl. She has a knack for chemistry and a penchant for poison, spending most of her time performing experiments in the manor's giant chemistry lab.
When a man breathes his dying breath into her face, exhaling a smelly "Vale!" as he expires, Flavia realizes that the man was murdered - she could smell the poison on his breath. Knowing that she is smarter than everyone around her, she throws herself into discovering the secrets surrounding the murder. She is Sherlock Holmes, in manner and intelligence, in a little girl's body.
What a truly fun read! And good news! There are to be six more in the series!

AND! If you are uber-nerdy, there is a Flavia de Luce fan club:
http://flaviafanclub.ning.com/

The Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart A. P. Murray

Bufkinite@evpl — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:01:00 GMT

This very readable and lavishly illustrated book is a survey of libraries, from the earliest gatherings of clay tablets in the library at Nineveh to the present grandeur of the Library of Congress. It is full of the characters of library history as well: from King Assurbanipal in 700 BCE, Mansa Musa, the sultan of Mali in Timbuktu in the 1300s, and the Mughal emperors Akbar in the late 1500s, to Thomas Bodley, Melvil Dewey, and Andrew Carnegie. All of themhave anecdotes attached to them which help to illustrate and flesh out the development and evolution of those institutions we call libraries today.

The Library: An Illustrated History tends to focus on Europe and the United States, but spends a chapter discussing Asia and Islam and their influence on the history of the book and libraries, and another, called "People of the Book," discussing the interplay between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the history of library development.

One of the themes running through this book is how the libraries of the victors are enlarged and enriched throughout history by the pillaging of the libraries of the vanquished. The Bibliotheque nationale de France, the Vatican Library, and the British Library have all broadened their substantial collections in this fashion. Another theme mentioned frequently was how war influenced which ideas were given currency in a given culture and time: "It was usually the sword that decided whose teachings would be supreme in any given land."

In this regard, this book compliments the message in Matthew Battles's book Library: An Unquiet History, but that book is only marginally illustrated, and does not bring the reader the wonderful survey of world libraries with which Murray's book ends. Anyone wanting a good overview of library history would find their time well spent reading this book.

Love As Always, Kurt: Vonnegut As I Knew Him, by Loree Rackstraw

Bufkinite@evpl — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:21:00 GMT

In September of 1965 Lorree Rackstraw was a graduate student in her second year at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, apprehensive about her new teacher, a relatively unknown writer named Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut had published just three books: The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle. He'd also finished writing God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater the previous spring, and was struggling to get onto paper what he referred to as his "Dresden Book."

Love As Always, Kurt, recounts the friendship that began that summer, and lasted over 40 years, until Kurt Vonnegut died in April of 2007. To call it a friendship cheapens the care that this memoir makes clear they shared with one another. Rackstraw is now Professor Emeritus and the University of Northern Iowa & former editor of The North American Review.

This memoir of Rackstraw's forty-year relationship with Kurt Vonnegut is a very personal and deep look into both the human and the writer behind the name Kurt Vonnegut. We see clearly how, as a writer, he labors in draft after draft of everything he wrote from Slaughterhouse Five to Man Without a Country, and down to the speeches he gave at countless colleges, universities, graduations, and memorial services. We see, just as clearly, how he champions common humanity, and simultaneously enjoys the company of the famous and relatively well-to-do. We see how, despite periods of darkness and cynicism, this relationship buoyed Vonnegut, and provided Rackstraw with an escape from the pressures of her academic career as well.

We see, most plainly, a deep and abiding friendship that transcends all normal definitions. Was it love? Definitely. What it friendship? In the most useful meaning of the word, yes. But it was more: it was a collegial relationship - Vonnegut sent her page proofs of everything from Slaughterhouse Five forward; it was an intimate relationship, certainly: "Kurt and I toured the town of Key West, hand in hand like kids, and took photographs of each other beside somebody else's catch of a huge fish... Later, we danced barefoot under moonlight on that beach, to ragtime music from the piano bar;" and ultimately, it was a lifelong relationship, that saw a parting of the ways only in the death of one.

Being a long-time Vonnegut fan, I loved this book. It represents a first-hand account of four decades of his life by someone who he consistently loved, and who loved him in return. A tender portrait.

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World

Bufkinite@evpl — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:34:00 GMT

Paul Collins writes in a convivial and breezy style, and is the kind of natural storyteller who brings history to life. Nevertheless, in The Book of William, his scholarship and authority are undeniable, and make this book an important entry point for those interested in learning more about Shakespeare.

This telling of the "life story" of what became known as the First Folio of Shakespeare (though the book's title, according to commonly accepted cataloging rules would be Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies) is, quite simply wonderfully done.

Written in five "Acts" subdivided into scenes, it takes the reader from the day in 1617 or 1618 that John Heminge and Henry Condell - two aging men who had actually worked with Shakespeare - approached the printer William Jaggard with the idea of publishing all the known works of the Bard, to 2006 in Meisei University in Tokyo, home of the largest university collection of First Folios in the world; 12 of them, "more than the British Library and the New York Public Library combined."

In between we are introduced to such well-known characters as Alexander Pope and Dr. Samuel Johnson, and a host of lesser-known but nevertheless interesting characters as: Dr. Anthony James West, who conducted a recent worldwide census of First Folios (locating a record 230 copies); Henry Clay Folger, collector extraordinaire and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library (which owns an astounding 79 copies of the First Folio); Charlton Hinman, inventor of the Hinman collator; and Mitsuo Kodama, past president of Meisei University, and the only reason why Meisei University has so many First Folios.

Spanning three continents and nearly four centuries, this book is a delightful look at the one book that routinely sells for fifty-five times its weight in gold.

Link to the Shakespeare Folio Electronic Library at Meisei University.
Purchase a facsimile of the First Folio from Amazon, and benefit the Public Library Friends.

"A weed by any other name : the virtues of a messy lawn, or, learning to love the plants we don't plant" by Nancy Gift

MediaPhile@evpl — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:46:00 GMT

I recall a gardening workshop where I posed a question having to do with lawns. The speaker asked what kind of grass I had and I replied "weedy grass." The audience laughed, but it was a serious reply. That was the only kind of grass I knew growing up and it is the same kind of grass I have now, so rest assured I was delighted with this book.

A blog post self-describes Dr. Gift as "an assistant professor of environmental studies and acting director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and a lawn full of weeds." I love it!

Each chapter focuses on the pluses and minuses of the various "weeds" that creep into our yards -- violets, dandelions, morning glory, etc. You won't be able to finish this short book without wondering whether you really need commercial spraying of noxious chemicals to maintain a perfect monocultural lawn -- one that doesn't contribute to the viability of insects, birds, or any other life (including that of barefoot kids).

p.s. when you read about the intensive spraying done on golf courses, you might decide to switch to a different sport.