The Buzz...About Books

May 16 is Biographers Day

Today is the anniversary of the first meeting between Samuel Johnson and James Boswell.  The men met in 1763 in a London bookstore.  The meeting and friendship led to the publication of Boswell's landmark biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson (also available as an eBook). 

May 16 has been designated as Biographers Day in honour of this meeting.  Why not celebrate by reading a biography?

These are books about extraordinary and sometimes unlikely friendships.

Boswell's Presumptuous Task: the Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson by Adam Sisman
Sisman documents Boswell and Johnson's friendship, detailing Boswell's struggle to complete the legendary biography.

The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das by Merrily Weisbrod
Canadian writer Weisbrod was nominated for the 2011 Charles Taylor prize for this memoir about her friendship with controversial Indian writer Kamala Das.

Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly: the Remarkable Story of the Friendship between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner
Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckly were both born in 1818 but their early lives were radically different. The Todd family were well-respected and upwardly mobile; Keckly was the product of a relationship between her slave mother and her white master. Keckly's skill as a seamstress brought her to the attention of Mrs Lincoln and she soon became one of the First Lady's most trusted confidantes.

Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship by Dave Kindred
Although outwardly different, sportscaster Howard Cosell and boxer Mohammad Ali formed a complex relationship during the turbulent 1960s.

White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
Although they only met twice, Dickinson and Higginson forged a complex and long-lasting friendship through letters. This account of their relationship is based upon 25 years of letters set to Higginson by Dickinson.

This is merely a small selection of the biographies available at Toronto Public Library.  Please consult with staff at your local branch for more suggestions.

Is Geek the New Cool?

In the book, Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits are Taking Over the World a geek is defined as: "a person who's passionate about something and strives to be an expert."

Recently one of my friends commented that while we were in school, being a geek was considered a bad thing! This statement made me think. Have things truly changed? Are geeks now more socially accepted? Or have the geeks of the past simply grown up to design computers and make television shows like the Big Bang Theory and blockbuster superhero movies. These geeks have grown into successful adults. Is it true, just as the book title suggests, that The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth?

The following are a few of my favourite geeky books and movies, including a few biographies by some self-proclaimed geeks, who made it big.

Non-Fiction

Fiction

 
                 

DVDs

                                                        

Successful Geeks

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

This year, for the first time since 1977, there will be no Pulitzer Prize given for fiction.  The jurors have announced that they could not reach a concensus and will therefore not present this award.

The Pulitzer Prizes for books are awarded in several categories.

Biography or Autobiography

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner:
George F. Kennan: an American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

Finalists:
Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel

Malcolm X: a Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
        Audiobook
        eBook
        Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

Drama

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner:
Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes

Finalists:
Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz

Sons of the Prophet by Stephen Karam

Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finalists:
The Pale King: an Unfinished Novel by David Foster Wallace
        Audiobook
        Large Print

Swamplandia by Karen Russell
        eAudiobook
        eBook       

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

General Non-Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner:
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
        eAudiobook

Finalists:
One Hundred Names for Love: a Stroke, a Marriage and the Language of Healing by Diane Ackerman
        Large Print
        eAudiobook

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl

History

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner:
Malcolm X: a Life of Reinvention by Manning Maracle
        Audiobook
        eBook
        Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

Finalists:
Empires, Nations & Families: a History of the North American West, 1800-1860 by Anne F. Hyde

The Eleventh Day: the Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

Railroaded: the Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White

Poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner:
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

Finalists:
Core Samples from the World by Forrest Gander

How Long by Ron Padgett

Have an Awesome Day!

March 10 is the International Day of Awesomeness.  The holiday was founded in 2007 based on the theory that "no one's perfect but everyone can be awesome" and encourages people to commit "acts of awesomeness" either alone or in groups.

Because I'm at work today, my opportunities to commit awesome acts outside of the library setting are limited.  This blog post celebrates the five most awesome books I've read over the past few years.  The books on the list are the ones that have delighted, enlightened, and entertained me and gotten stuck in my head.

Awesome Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
Billy Argo was once a famous boy detective, solving crimes with his sister and their best friend. Now an adult, Billy is confronted with a world that is incomprehensible and full of unsolvable problems. Poignant, dark and wonderful.

Three Bags Full: a Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swan
It's a book about crime-solving sheep! I know that sounds crazy but it is a delightful read--and not as cute as it sounds.

The Zero by Jess Walter
This dark and comic critique of post-9-11 America is not for everyone but I enjoyed every page.

Awesome Non-Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything is Miscellaneous: the Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger
It's a book about classification systems! I never expected to enjoy reading about classification systems but this book is a revelation. In a fun and accessible way, Weinberger demonstrates how the computer age has changed the way people organize their "stuff" and how this has influenced society.

Survival of the Sickest: a Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease by Sharon Moalem
This book traces the origins of disease showing how some of the medical conditions in the present day actually provided our ancient ancestors with evolutionary benefits. I read this book ages ago and I still regularly refer to it in conversation.

    Audiobook

What awesome books do you recommend?

Find out more about The International Day of Awesomeness.

If you want more awesomeness, take a look at The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha.

Related Post:

A new book by a favourite author...Awesome!

The poem that ignited the Renaissance

In The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt tells the story of Poggio Bracciolini and his discovery of  Titus Lucretius Carus' influential poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things).  According to Greenblatt, it is the discovery of this beautiful poem, which had been lost for more than a thousand years, that was the spark that begun the Renaissance and therefore the beginning of the modern world. 

Lucretius' poem contained some very dangerous ideas for 15th century Europe.  It claimed that the universe functions without the help of gods, that death should not be feared because there is no afterlife, and that the world is made up of very small particles that are randomly colliding and swerving.  Greenblatt argues that these ideas went on to have a significant impact on the great thinkers who followed, including Galileo, Freud, Darwin and Einstein.

Greenblatt presents a vivid picture of the political, intellectual and religious climate of the early 1400s, when the Roman Catholic Church was split between several Popes and interest in the works of Greek and Roman philosophers was reviving.  Bracciolini, one of the great bookhunters of his time, spent his life trying to find lost classical manuscripts, such as On The Nature of Things, by visiting remote monasteries where generations of monks had spent their time copying, and recopying, the books in their collections.

 

The Swerve was a engaging and enjoyable book, easily understood by anyone with a basic knowledge of history. It may appeal to those who enjoy medieval and Renaissance history  as well as anyone interested in the history of philosophy.  Fans of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens may also find it of interest, as Lucretius' philosophy is part of the history of the their ideas.

 

The Swerve was the winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction. Reviews for this book appeared in the Globe and Mail, and The Guardian, and The New York Times. The Swerve is also available as an eAudiobook.

 

For more suggestions of non-fiction books, have a look at our Literary Non-Fiction We Recommend list.

Winning Reads--Books that Inspired Oscar Nominated Films

Tonight's Academy Awards ceremony promises glitz, glamour and celebrities.  It's important to note that some of the motion picture magic has been inspired by literature.  This year a number of the movies nominated for Best Picture were based on books.

 

The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings.
Hemmings' novel inspired the movie about a family in crisis.
 

Other Formats:
eBook
eAudiobook

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
A boy searches New York for answers after his father dies in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Other Formats:
Audiobook
eBook
eAudiobook
Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel inspired the film about maids in Mississippi in the 1960s and the feisty woman who wanted to tell their story.
Other Formats:
Large Print
Audiobook
eBook
eAudiobook
Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
This award-winning children's novel about a boy living in a Paris train station was the source material for Hugo, a film by Martin Scorsese. 

Other Formats:
Audiobook
eAudiobook

 

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
Lewis' book about baseball manager Billy Beane's innovative and successful attempt to use computer analysis to draft players was the inspiration for Moneyball.

Other Formats:
eAudiobook

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
It's been a play and a movie, but it began as a children's book. The film has been nominated for best picture and best adapted screenplay. 

Other Formats:
Large Print
Audiobook
eAudiobook 

 

Books and stories also inspired films nominated in other categories:

Albert Nobbs, the Glenn Close vehicle, was based on a short story called The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs by George Moore which can be found in The Bodley Head Book of Longer Short Stories, 1900-1974.

Rooney Mara is nominated for her role as Lizbeth Salander, a character created by Stieg Larsson in his novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling provided the story for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2, the conclusion of the Harry Potter series.

In Darkness, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, is based on Robert Marshall's non-fictional book In the Sewers of Lvov: the Last Sanctuary from the Holocaust.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre provided the inspiration for the film of the same name.

"The best books make me stupid."

Some books make us happy, some make us sad but broadcaster Mary Ito's favourite books make her "stupid".  She was kind enough to share a list of her best reads and the following introduction with us.

---

The Best Books Make Me Stupid

I know there's a general belief out there that books make you smart.  But something strange happens to me that defies that notion.  I can't seem to function properly after reading a book that moves me, in a soul-shaking, mind-bending, chest-thumping kind of way.  Thank goodness there are only so many of these BMDs (books of mass destruction) because the better the book, the worse my condition.  It's been very hard on my family. 
 
Here are five outcomes (in ascending order, or descending depending on how you want to look at it), of what a great book can do:
 
1.  Feel deeply satisfied after reading it
2.  Must blab about it to anyone within a 100 miles (call it the 100 Mile Book Diet)
3.  The opposite effect - I'm rendered speechless
4.  Speechless AND prostrate
5.  I enter a coma-like state as a fog settles in my brain and disrupts all cognitive function.
 
Because of this precarious condition, I must be extremely careful NOT to read two coma-inducing books back to back.  This happened once unintentionally when I read Jon Lee Anderson's Che Guevara and then Blindness by Jose Saramago  immediately after.  I honestly can't remember much of Venice. (What did happen on that trip?) But that's where vacation pictures come in handy. The problem is (like a relationship) you never know what kind of effect it's going to have until you're deep into it, and then once it's got a hold of you (like a relationship), it's almost impossible to extricate yourself.   

Another time, we were vacationing in San Francisco and my husband had the misfortune of trying to talk to me immediately after I'd read The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  BIG mistake.  He asked me the most impossible question, something like, "where do you want to go today?"  It might just as well have been "what are the chances we'll have peace in the Middle East , and do you think Kim Jong Un's hairstyle will eventually morph into his father's?"  Eerie silence.   My husband looks at my daughter and asks "what's with your mother?"  She replies, "Dad!!! You KNOW she just finished reading that hedgehog book!!!"  True story.

These books left me at the very least deeply satisfied, and a few were coma-inducing. But no worries, I've recovered. You may not.

Five Books for Super Bowl Sunday

It's a big day for sports fans.  It always seems to me that the Super Bowl broadcast lasts for an entire weekend while the game itself is relatively brief.  If you get bored during the pre-pre-pre-game show or the post-post-post-game analysis, you might like to read one of these books about football.

That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set in on the Path to Glory  by John Eisenberg
Everyone loves a comeback story. In a single season, legendary coach Vince Lombardi took the Green Bay Packers from laughing stocks to champions.

The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Game Changed Football Forever by Frank Gifford
Frank Gifford, MVP of the 1958 Championship Game, sometimes called "the best game ever", discusses the game and its impact on football.

The Making of the Super Bowl: The Inside Story of the World's Greatest Sporting Event by Don Weiss
Weiss, one of the founding fathers of the Super Bowl, describes the creation and history of the event.

Scoreboard, Baby: a Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry
Investigative reporters Armstrong and Perry discovered that behind the 2000 Rose Bowl winning season of the University of Washington Huskies lay a network of law enforcement officers, university administrators and citizens who ignored, excused and abetted the criminal behaviour of the team's players.

War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team by Michael Holley
Holley looks at the wide-spread influence of New England Patriots coach Belichick on other teams and on football in general.

A journey of a hundred feet...

One of the best things about working in a library is exchanging book recommendations with colleagues and customers.  My thanks to my co-worker Joanne for this recommendation!

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C Morais is the fictional memoir of Hassan Haji, a three-star chef in Paris. Born above his grandfather's restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan and his family leave India after a terrible tragedy.   After moving around for several years, they finally settle in a small town in the French Alps and continue the family tradition by opening an Indian restaurant. 

Unfortunately, not everyone is happy with these new residents.  Madame Mallory is the owner and chef of Le Saule Pleureur, an inn and two-star restaurant which is located across the street from the Haji's new restaurant.   After seeing the impact of the new restaurant on her business and her community, she becomes irate and becomes determined to drive the Haji family away. 

The conflict between Chef Mallory and the Hassan's family soon escalates out of control.  To make amends, she offers to take Hassan as her apprentice to be trained as a French chef.  It is this hundred-foot journey from his family's restaurant to Le Saule Pleureur which will change Hassan's life forever.

While the Hundred-Foot Journey is fictional, it may inspire you to read a memoir or biography of a famous chef.  Here is a selection:

• Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay
• Alice Waters & Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee
• Kitchen Confidential : Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
• Blood, Bones, & Butter : the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
• Beaten, Seared, and Sauced : On Becoming a Chef at the Culinary Institute of America by Jonathan Dixon
• Michel Roux : A Life in the Kitchen by Michel Roux

 

For some suggestions of other novels that feature food, check out this post on the York Woods District Blog:

• Fiction for Foodies

 

 

Dispatches from the War on the Internet

When Wikipedia darkened it's site last week to protest the passing of laws that would have placed new restrictions on our use of the internet to share books, music and video, I was very glad to have just finished reading two excellent collections of essays by Cory Doctorow on the issues involved.

Cory Doctorow by Derryl Murphy

Doctorow was born in Toronto and has a reputation as an author of fine science-fiction and as a co-editor of the wildly popular blog Boing Boing. He has also been writing marvelously entertaining articles on the internet using down-to-earth, easy to understand language and examples from everyday life.

In his first collection -- Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future he writes in detail about the negative effects of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other forms of control on the internet.

Doctorow's argument boils down to his belief that whatever we lose in the free exchange of information on the internet, we will gain in innovations which will enrich our culture in ways that cannot yet be predicted. Call him an optimist.

Doctorow has given away free downloads of all his novels from the beginning of his career. He has found that by making these copies free and encouraging his fans to share them online he has expanded the market for the printed editions of his books.

In his latest collection -- Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century he writes about how these issues affect him as a creative writer and as a new parent.

He explains intellectual property, the "information economy", copyright enforcement and digital licensing in clearly understandable ways.

His warnings about the vulnerability of our passwords and our personal data online are frightening and sobering.

He explains why streaming will never replace the downloading of music online.

He also talks about how he manages the hundreds of non-spam emails he gets every day, and why he will never buy an iPad.

Together these books cover ten years of exciting, insightful coverage of these increasingly important issues in a highly readable way.