Ages 18+.
Blog Post
Eating your words
by S.T. Augustine
I love food. I love words. This combination obsession has led me to spend entirely too much time wandering a certain online food dictionary. But now there is something I can finger through from the comfort of my bed, or on the bus, or anywhere: Eating Your Words by William Grimes.
This book includes a full page list of cooking methods and on a sweeter note, a list of cookies (ever hear of a rugelach, or a springerle?). Wondering about muffuletta? Looking for a definition of "variety meats"? This might be the book for you.
Absolutely mouth watering.
Blog Post
Faulkner Factoids
by sernabad
Did you know that:
William Faulkner faked a British accent and forged letters of recommendation in order to get accepted into the Royal Canadian Air Force?
William Faulkner worked at Oxford University as a Postmaster?
William Faulkner got his start as a novelist when his friend Sherwood Anderson encouraged him to abandon poetry for fiction? When Faulkner agreed to this path, Anderson said he’d talk up Soldier’s Pay, Faulkner’s first effort, as long as Faulkner didn’t make him read it.
Faulkner, of course, went on to become one of the giants of 20th century American literature. Now is he is the focus of Oprah’s Summer Book Club. Join the masses and catch up on some of the most influential writing in U.S. literary history.
Blog Post
First Lady of the Press
by Robb
Appearing on Fresh Air July 21, 2005 · Helen Thomas has been covering the White House for 62 years. She gives us an inside look at the White House Press Room and comments on the recent scandals surrounding the Valerie Plame name leak and the possible involvement of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove. The library has several books by Helen Thomas.
Blog Post
Baseball's Dark Side
by Robb
Boston Herald sports columnist Howard Bryant is author of the new book Juicing the Game. Baseball in the 1990s -- with greater profit and more record breakers than ever -- has come to be known as "The Juiced Era."
Blog Post
A Paean to Librarians and Libraries in Larry Beinhart's The Librarian
by Van
A university librarian is recruited to catalog the papers of a right-wing businessman. The presidential election is coming up and a conspiratorial group of politicians, bureaucrats, brutal operatives hidden within Homeland Security, and wealthy donors contribute to some very strange events: the major Democratic candidate has a fatal airplane accident just before the convention, other people die, things blow up. This group believes the librarian may have found out something he should not have and decide he needs to be eliminated. The author wrote American Hero, on which the film Wag the Dog is based.
David Hauser, the Librarian, offered these thoughts when asked what it was like to be a librarian:
“It’s a sort of communism, without ideology or Marx or any of that bullshit. We’re in the business of giving away knowledge. For free. Come in, please come, and take some knowledge for free, no, no limit, keep going, gorge on it if you want, no, it’s not a trick, a come on, a free sample and then we’ll bill you later, or we’ll paper your head with banners and pop-ups. Librarians don’t have a lot of status and we don’t make a lot of money, more than poets, but not so much, say, as your more successful panhandlers, so our ideals are important to us and the love of books and the love of knowledge and the love of truth and free information and letting people discover things for themselves and let them, oh, read romance novels or detective novels, whatever they want, and giving poor people Internet access.”
Blog Post
The Brethren
by amy
The recent retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the nomination of U.S. Circuit Judge John G. Roberts Jr. has put the Supreme Court in the spotlight of American politics. Read The Brethren: Inside the Surpreme Court, Bob Woodward's 1979 ground-breaking study of American jurisprudence at its highest level and a behind-the-scenes view of the Supreme Court at mid-20th century in transition from the relatively liberal Warren Court to the more conservative Berger Court.
Blog Post
RIP Ret. General William Westmoreland
by amy
The death Monday of retired General William G. Westmoreland closes yet another chapter in the controversial Vietnam era of American history. Check out these three award-winning documentaries that touch on different facets of that period's military history, politics and personal loss: Fog of War, Regret to Inform and Hearts and Minds.
Blog Post
Did you read it over the weekend?
by amy
We know it sold a record 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours, but did you actually have time to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince over the weekend? I only had time enough to get through the first fifty pages, but I'm looking forward to the next 622.
Blog Post
Polio and its Aftermath
by amy
Fifty years ago, Jonas Salk announced a vaccine against polio at the University of Michigan. Today on the Diane Rehm Show, author Marc Shell talks about his book Polio and its Aftermath.
Click here for an image of Dr. Salk from the Making of Ann Arbor image collection.
Blog Post
The Emancipation of Mimi
by amy
Mariah Carey looks and sounds like Beyoncé on The Emancipation of Mimi, but apparently that's the right recipe. The album, previously #1, is currently #4 on The Billboard 200 and fans of Carey--the best-selling female performer of the 1990s--are hailing it as a comeback.