Ages 18+.
Blog Post
Realistic World War II background for this gripping thriller
by ulrich
Philip Kerr’s new novel Hitler’s Peace provides an entertaining mix of history, espionage, political infighting and murder mystery. Focused on the Teheran Conference of the Big Three allies in 1943, the story follows intrigue in the Third Reich and among the allies as Himmler, Schellenberg, von Ribbentrop and other Nazi bigwigs try to find ways to divide the allies and undermine their ‘unconditional surrender’ policy.
While the main fictional character is an OSS agent with a checkered past, all the real historical figures are on stage in convincing fashion. A fun read for fans of Alan Furst, Ken Follett, Jack Higgins and the like. Kerr is also the author of the atmospheric Berlin Noir Trilogy police procedurals March Violets, The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem set in prewar Nazi Germany.
Blog Post
Judith Rossner, 1935-2005
by sernabad
Judith Rossner, author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, died today in New York City.
Ms. Rossner faced head-on, women on the edge. A married woman carries another man's child in her first novel, To the Precipice. She later proved that there is life after forty in August (1983).
But it was in her signature novel, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, that Rossner captured the frenetic loneliness of single urban women in the 1970s that defined her literary career.
Based on the true stoy of Roseann Quinn, a New York City teacher murdered by a man she had picked up in a bar, Looking for Mr. Goodbar riveted the literary world. Diane Keaton and Richard Gere starred in the movie adaptation, which was nominated for four Oscars.
Ms. Rossner was 70.
Blog Post
Do you want fries with that?
by S.T. Augustine
I have to admit that I have a hard time with the ever popular term, "obesity epidemic". However, even if I do have a problem with the language choices involved, I do think that collectively we need to take a good appraising look at the issue at hand. It's a complicated matter though it seems like it should be simple. Consume more calories than your body is burning and you'll gain weight. Consume less calories than your body needs to maintain your current weight at your current level of activity and you'll lose weight. But is it that simple when millions of Americans (and increasingly people across the globe) are overweight?
Scarier still is that a higher and higher percentage of kids are overweight/obese. What do we do about this. While a single book won't answer the question, Fed Up: Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity if nothing else, puts the facts about childhood fat out there.
Blog Post
New Fiction Titles on the New York Times Bestseller List (August 7, 2005)
by Mazie
There are three new additions to pack for the beach or cottage on this week’s list.
At #2 is The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan: a troubled marriage is complicated even more by an unplanned pregnancy.
At #7 is The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella: the laughs begin when a lawyer flees London and her job in a high-powered law firm to work as a housekeeper in the middle of nowhere.
At #8 is No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: a gritty modern western involving drugs and stolen money.
Blog Post
New Non-fiction Books on the New York Times Best Sellers List: August 14, 2005
by Van
Ann Arborites, which book do you think will get the most holds?
#10
Bill Maher’s New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer with such polite, timid musings on George W. Bush as “George Bush must stop saying he owes all his success to Laura. George Bush owes all his success to his daddy, his daddy’s friends, trust funds, legacy admissions, the National Guard, the Supreme Court, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and A.A.”
or
#13
Pennsylvania’s Senator Rick Santorum’s It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, a direct rebuttal to New York’s Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s It Takes a Village : and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. The book outlines how liberal philosophies and attempts to deal with social problems over the past forty years have failed. Senator Santorum feels we need compassionate conservatism, a policy approach that centers on family, community and church. Dr. Laura A. Schlessinger likes the book: “I am amazed at the depth and breadth of information, wisdom, and sensitivity.”
Blog Post
Ray Harryhausen Animation
by kimatr
We've all come to expect our sci-fi movies to have dazzling, computer-animated special effects. However, science fiction movies have been around since long before computer animation. Stop motion animation was one way of creating special effects in those days, and Ray Harryhausen is a legend in the field. During his career, he created everything from dinosaurs to flying saucers to A giant, six-armed (due to budget constraints) octopus.
Blog Post
Traveling Through Time: a Guide to Michigan’s Historical Markers
by Van
This book, edited by Laura R. Ashlee, is arranged by county and by place within the county and has the location and the text of the official Michigan Historical Markers. Of the over fourteen hundred Michigan Historical Markers dedicated since the program began in 1955 fifty-five are in Washtenaw County and fourteen are in Ann Arbor.
The markers in Ann Arbor commemorate the founding of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society in 1836; the Earhart Manor on the grounds of Concordia University; Governor Alpheus Felch (also Mayor of Ann Arbor, Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, United States Senator, and Tappan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan); the Ticknor-Campbell House (the Cobblestone Farm); Michigan’s First Jewish Cemetery Site; and nine other events, buildings, and churches.
Blog Post
Peter Jennings
by sernabad
Peter Jennings, longtime ABC Nightly News anchor, died August 7, after a short, determined battle against lung cancer.
Jennings, a Canadian who had dropped out of high school, was known for his ubiquitous presence at seemingly all the major breaking news events of the past two four decades, and for his extensive travels worldwide which brought the news into our living rooms. Jennings was never more front and center than when reporting on September 11th. According to today’s New York Times, “[Jennings]" would spend more than 60 hours on the air in what Tom Shales of The Washington Post, among other critics, praised as a tour de force of interviewing and explanatory broadcast journalism laced with undisguised bewilderment.”
Remarkably, Jennings managed to co-write, with Todd Brewster, two books during his journalism career. The Century (1998), wrote a companion book to the popular 12-hour ABC-TV documentary series by the same name. Using photographs and interviews, Jennings and Brewster spanned 100 years in American history .
In their second collaboration, In Search of America (2002), Jennings and Brewster spent time in six cities (Aiken, SC; Washington, D.C.; Salt Lake City; Plano, TX; Boulder, CO; and Gary, IN) checking the pulse of American opinions. Their observations on America’s thoughts about religion, globalization, and popular culture, among other topics, go a long way to explain the contentious nature of today’s national discussion.
Peter Jennings was 67.
Blog Post
The Play Ground
by Albert
Opening The Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan gave established movie actor Jeff Daniels the opportunity to create a professional theatre company, featuring Midwestern actors, directors, designers and playwrights. Playing there through September 24 is a play by author and columnist Mitch Albom, And the Winner Is. It is directed by PRTC Artistic Director Guy Sanville.
Jenn McKee of the Ann Arbor News says that the play "...takes on considerable emotional heft and poignancy, and Albom achieves a fitting end that is simultaneously inevitable and surprising. Albom also, throughout the play, offers up a good deal of bright, cynical humor... “
Blog Post
Fair and Tender Ladies, by Lee Smith
by sernabad
For her August 2005 book club discussion, Reader’s Review, Diane Rehm has breathed new life into Fair and Tender Ladies, the 1988 epistolary novel by Lee Smith. Set in pre World War I Sugar Fork, Virginia, tucked into the Appalachians, Smith’s letter-writing protagonist, Ivy Rowe, is as prolific a storyteller as Smith herself. Ivy had big ambitions to be a writer but an early pregnancy and marriage turned her, instead, into a non-stop correspondent throughout her life. Based on letters that Smith picked up at a garage sale, Fair and Tender Ladies is one of those timeless stories to be cherished over and over.
Rehm and her audience will discuss Fair and Tender Ladies on Wednesday, August, 17.