LIBRARY NOTES: BROWSING THE SHELVES AT RPL
PAUL BIRKHEAD – MAY 30, 2010
For a book lover like me, there’s nothing quite like browsing the stacks at Rowan Public Library. I get the same feeling at bookstores, but it’s usually accompanied by feelings of guilt for spending an inordinate amount of time sampling and not buying. The library is tough to beat because borrowing books on a wide variety of subjects doesn’t cost me a penny. Just the other day, I found myself exploring the new non-fiction shelves at the library, and here are some books I just had to take home with me.
The Letter and the Scroll: What Archaeology Tells Us about the Bible is a fascinating book published by the National Geographic Society. The book is divided into chapters which cover major eras in biblical history. While the book’s authors are careful to state that their purpose is neither to prove nor disprove the Bible, anyone interested in the Bible or ancient times is sure to be impressed by the content. As is typical in National Geographic publications, the book is filled with a generous number of beautiful maps and illustrations as well as stunning photographs of priceless artifacts and archaeological finds.
In Sweet Carolina: Favorite Desserts and Candies from the Old North State, author Foy Allen Edelman presents a collection of recipes she compiled from the kitchens of North Carolinians. Over the course of several years, Edelman traveled across her home state interviewing cooks from dozens of communities. Often, she was able to procure the recipe for their signature dessert. The result is a mouthwatering collection of recipes for pies, cakes, cookies, cobblers, and even a sonker or two.
If you decide to leave the confines of North Carolina and head, with kids in tow, to Washington, D.C., you might find this book interesting. The newest edition of Washington, D.C. with Kids, published by Fodor’s, is a comprehensive tour guide. This book does a good job of guiding visitors to must-see exhibits, monuments, and historic sites. Symbols in the book designate specific things to note, such as Helpful Hints, Smart Stuff, as well as Money-Saving and Time-Saving Tips. Items of interest to ‘Tweens and Teens’ and even those of ‘All Ages’ are also found for most attractions.
The final book that caught my attention was Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation. The cover of the book is graced by the smiling faces of John and Jackie Kennedy taken from a photograph made shortly after their arrival in Texas. Little did anyone know what horrors lay ahead for them and the Nation. The assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas unleashed a whirlwind of sympathy for his widow. In the course of seven weeks, Mrs. Kennedy received nearly a million condolence letters. A large collection of these letters was kept and has been stored for years, largely unexamined, in the archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. In Letters to Jackie, historian Ellen Fitzpatrick selected 250 letters she felt compelling. In these, ordinary Americans sought to relay their sympathies to the late President’s wife and perhaps come to grips with their own grief.
No matter what subjects might interest you, come to the Rowan Public Library, and I’m sure you’ll find many books that will catch your eye. Be forewarned, though, simply browsing the shelves of our newest acquisitions can result in walking out the door with a whole armload.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Library Notes—May 3, 2010—Betty Moore
Geography of Bliss
Just as some happiness experts say we find moments of happiness on our way to something else, I discovered Eric Weiner’s CD book about happiness, “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World” on my way to something else. Having heard some of the radio reports by this foreign correspondent, and learning that he read his own book for the CD, I picked it up at the library to listen to in the car. RPL also has the print book.
In his work Weiner has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Indonesia, which many people would consider unhappy places. “What if,” Weiner wondered, “I spent a year traveling the globe, seeking out not the world’s well-trodden trouble spots but, rather, its unheralded happy places? Places that possess, in spades, one or more of the ingredients that we consider essential to the hearty stew of happiness: money, pleasure, spirituality, family, and chocolate, among others.”
Weiner first travels to the Netherlands, especially to meet with Dutch professor Ruut Veenhoven, “the godfather of happiness research,” who oversees the “World Database of Happiness.”
He also spends time in Switzerland, Qatar, Iceland, Britain, Moldova, Thailand, and several other countries to see if its inhabitants actually fit the stereotypes of happiness (or in the case of Moldova, unhappiness), that others would expect of them.
Curious about Bhutan’s policy of Gross National Happiness, he learns that the Bhutanese regard “happiness” as something very different from the smiley-face version often seen in the US. For them it is a collective endeavor. He is told, “We don’t believe in this Robinson Crusoe happiness. All happiness is relational.”
Weiner’s book is not so much a book about “how to be happy” as it is one that explores what happiness means in a number of cultures, how it connects to history, wealth, religion, geography and other cultural aspects.
At the end of the book he says that after all his world travels, he now happily divides his time between his living room and his kitchen. I enjoyed the book’s mixture of history, research, culture, memoir, and travelogue, as well as the wry humor of his presentation.
Rather than travel to see where in the world happy people live, Gretchen Rubin looks at home for ways to increase her own happiness. In her book “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun,” she chronicles her year-long project to look at “the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.” A review in “Publishers Weekly” says Rubin balances “the personal and the universal with a light touch.”
Geography of Bliss
Just as some happiness experts say we find moments of happiness on our way to something else, I discovered Eric Weiner’s CD book about happiness, “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World” on my way to something else. Having heard some of the radio reports by this foreign correspondent, and learning that he read his own book for the CD, I picked it up at the library to listen to in the car. RPL also has the print book.
In his work Weiner has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Indonesia, which many people would consider unhappy places. “What if,” Weiner wondered, “I spent a year traveling the globe, seeking out not the world’s well-trodden trouble spots but, rather, its unheralded happy places? Places that possess, in spades, one or more of the ingredients that we consider essential to the hearty stew of happiness: money, pleasure, spirituality, family, and chocolate, among others.”
Weiner first travels to the Netherlands, especially to meet with Dutch professor Ruut Veenhoven, “the godfather of happiness research,” who oversees the “World Database of Happiness.”
He also spends time in Switzerland, Qatar, Iceland, Britain, Moldova, Thailand, and several other countries to see if its inhabitants actually fit the stereotypes of happiness (or in the case of Moldova, unhappiness), that others would expect of them.
Curious about Bhutan’s policy of Gross National Happiness, he learns that the Bhutanese regard “happiness” as something very different from the smiley-face version often seen in the US. For them it is a collective endeavor. He is told, “We don’t believe in this Robinson Crusoe happiness. All happiness is relational.”
Weiner’s book is not so much a book about “how to be happy” as it is one that explores what happiness means in a number of cultures, how it connects to history, wealth, religion, geography and other cultural aspects.
At the end of the book he says that after all his world travels, he now happily divides his time between his living room and his kitchen. I enjoyed the book’s mixture of history, research, culture, memoir, and travelogue, as well as the wry humor of his presentation.
Rather than travel to see where in the world happy people live, Gretchen Rubin looks at home for ways to increase her own happiness. In her book “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun,” she chronicles her year-long project to look at “the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.” A review in “Publishers Weekly” says Rubin balances “the personal and the universal with a light touch.”
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Library Notes
Rebecca Hyde - April 26, 2010
Sonia Dourlot (“Insect Museum”) provides an engaging introduction to the study of insects. The “little beasts” share our daily routines. They are plentiful and widespread. Our ignorance is at the core of our fears surrounding them. And we should become familiar with their behavior because they play a very important ecological role. The following books offer understanding and appreciation of insects that you may see in your garden or in someone else’s. May you then step lightly and spend more time close to the ground.
With descriptions of 114 species of insects and other arthropods and full-page color images, Dourlot’s “Insect Museum” demonstrates the beauty and complexity of that world. Encounter close up the lovely damselfly and the social southern brown wood ant.
For a grand overview of the insect world, see Stephen A Marshall’s “Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity.” The book is based on material collected for a third-year entomology course. It covers all the major insect families but focuses on the common ones of eastern North America. With this book, you can be a student of insects of the world, or leaf through the illustrated picture keys to identify a backyard discovery. Read the author’s preface (“An Overview of Six-legged Life”) and the Introduction (What is an insect?”). You’ll understand why “if insects are worth getting to know as an enemy of humankind, they are even more worthy of attention as our benefactors.”
For an “entomophile” view of the insect world, there are the autobiographies of Thomas Eisner and E. O. Wilson. Eisner’s “For Love of Insects” is both a memoir of a life in the field and an appreciation of the insect world. Eisner knew he was passionately interested in insects and genuinely interested in chemistry. His encounter with the bombardier beetle was his lucky break. He “struck gold,” for the beetle is a champion chemist. That discovery led to a career focusing on chemical communication in insects and other arthropods. Edward O. Wilson has collaborated with Eisner through the years and calls his friend a world-class biologist and an exceptional naturalist. He’s also an exceptional photographer. Eisner is a professor of chemical ecology at Cornell.
E. O Wilson (“Naturalist”) never grew out of his bug period as a child. And two early events, the spine of a pinfish and hearing loss in the upper registers, made him an entomologist, with his surviving eye turned to the ground, committed to celebrating the little things of the world. How is a naturalist created? A child comes to the edge of deep water with a mind prepared to wonder. Hands-on experience, not systematic knowledge, is what counts. As he grows older, complicated details and context from his culture are added, but the core image stays intact.
Wilson views himself as the “nominal founder” of sociobiology, and in his later years, “a civilized hunter,” in the field, studying the ants of the West Indies, island by island. He feels the same emotions he had as a teenage student, when his ambition was to be this kind of scientist.
It is curious that in the “Naturalist,” Wilson writes “one does not need to make ants protagonists of a novel to bring them deserved attention.” His novel, “Anthill,” was published in April.
Rebecca Hyde - April 26, 2010
Sonia Dourlot (“Insect Museum”) provides an engaging introduction to the study of insects. The “little beasts” share our daily routines. They are plentiful and widespread. Our ignorance is at the core of our fears surrounding them. And we should become familiar with their behavior because they play a very important ecological role. The following books offer understanding and appreciation of insects that you may see in your garden or in someone else’s. May you then step lightly and spend more time close to the ground.
With descriptions of 114 species of insects and other arthropods and full-page color images, Dourlot’s “Insect Museum” demonstrates the beauty and complexity of that world. Encounter close up the lovely damselfly and the social southern brown wood ant.
For a grand overview of the insect world, see Stephen A Marshall’s “Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity.” The book is based on material collected for a third-year entomology course. It covers all the major insect families but focuses on the common ones of eastern North America. With this book, you can be a student of insects of the world, or leaf through the illustrated picture keys to identify a backyard discovery. Read the author’s preface (“An Overview of Six-legged Life”) and the Introduction (What is an insect?”). You’ll understand why “if insects are worth getting to know as an enemy of humankind, they are even more worthy of attention as our benefactors.”
For an “entomophile” view of the insect world, there are the autobiographies of Thomas Eisner and E. O. Wilson. Eisner’s “For Love of Insects” is both a memoir of a life in the field and an appreciation of the insect world. Eisner knew he was passionately interested in insects and genuinely interested in chemistry. His encounter with the bombardier beetle was his lucky break. He “struck gold,” for the beetle is a champion chemist. That discovery led to a career focusing on chemical communication in insects and other arthropods. Edward O. Wilson has collaborated with Eisner through the years and calls his friend a world-class biologist and an exceptional naturalist. He’s also an exceptional photographer. Eisner is a professor of chemical ecology at Cornell.
E. O Wilson (“Naturalist”) never grew out of his bug period as a child. And two early events, the spine of a pinfish and hearing loss in the upper registers, made him an entomologist, with his surviving eye turned to the ground, committed to celebrating the little things of the world. How is a naturalist created? A child comes to the edge of deep water with a mind prepared to wonder. Hands-on experience, not systematic knowledge, is what counts. As he grows older, complicated details and context from his culture are added, but the core image stays intact.
Wilson views himself as the “nominal founder” of sociobiology, and in his later years, “a civilized hunter,” in the field, studying the ants of the West Indies, island by island. He feels the same emotions he had as a teenage student, when his ambition was to be this kind of scientist.
It is curious that in the “Naturalist,” Wilson writes “one does not need to make ants protagonists of a novel to bring them deserved attention.” His novel, “Anthill,” was published in April.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)