Through a Lens

The front page of the March 28, 1927 New York Times read "Slot Photo Device Brings $1,000,000 to Young Inventor." The Photomaton (predecessor of our photobooths) was the result of the creativity and tenacity of a man from a small town in Siberia. American Photobooth documents the history of the man and his machine, and features examples of how the photos have (and have not) changed over the years.
In Instamatic Karma May Pang shares her never-before-seen images of John Lennon that capture him at home and at work, in color and black and white. Definitely worth a look!

At KPL's sixth annual Teen Literature Seminar held on March 14, 2008, a topic that was mentioned by more than one speaker was the lack of high quality nonfiction being written for teens today. In that light, and in light of the current issues surrounding the presidential campaign, I offer, for the consideration of young and old alike, Race: A History Beyond Black and White by Marc Aronson. Reviewers have said:

"An essential resource for anyone studying the idea of race." - School Library Journal
"...[a] challenging offering from one of our finest history writers" - Kirkus Reviews
"an impressive, informative study that demands attention. It is likely to be dissected and debated—especially by students with a sophisticated grasp of history—and will, it is hoped, inspire questions." - Booklist

Other recent notable additions to the nonfiction section of the Teen collection include:
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Ges Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez
Red: The Next Generation of American Writers - Teenage Girls - on What Fires up their Lives Today by Amy Goldwasser (ed)
One Hundred Young Americans by Michael Franzini

Motor City

The city of Detroit plays such a big part in the stories of Detroit Noir that she becomes another character--not just the setting. The collection contains works by authors who have a special connection to the Motor City: Joyce Carol Oates, P.J. Parrish, and Michael Zadoorian are just a few. References to Vernors, the Ren Cen, Grand River Avenue, and other landmarks make the book a special read for those familiar with Motown. Motor City Dream Garages by Rex Roy features photographs of majestic garages of Detroit (a natural fit for the home of the big three automakers). Spectacular Homes of Michigan hit the shelves this week as well. It takes a look at the work of several interior designers throughout the state, including D.J. Kennedy. One of Kennedy's well-known projects was the design of Dennis Archer's 1920's mansion in Detroit. The luxury of the houses rivals the garages of Roy's book!

Defiantly Optimistic

Terry Ryan has entertainingly chronicled her mother's trials and triumphs in The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. Struggling to support her growing family in the 40s and 50s with a husband who spends much of his salary on alcohol, Evelyn manages to make magic with her jingles and poems and wins contests by the dozens. She earns toasters and trips, shopping sprees and cars...just when her family needs them most.
The biography was made into a delightful movie starring Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson by DreamWorks in 2006. It closely follows the book's narrative and spirit (and shows the ten grown children as they are today).

Finding Inspiration

If you wonder what could free the writer inside you, there are plenty of places to look for inspiration. I recently read How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors by Dan Crowe. What do authors like Chip Kidd, Jane Smiley, Will Self, Nicholson Baker, and Claire Messud require to get their creative juices flowing? (Answers: Quark Express, a hot bath, Post-It notes, earplugs, and graph paper.) If you require visual prompts, give A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words by Phillip Sexton a glance. Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Brontë by Maureen Adams reveals how a furry companion could help your writing process. Once you're convinced you have it in you, Walter Mosley's This Year You Write Your Novel will keep you motivated. Finally, Famous by Kathleen Flenniken (an ALA Notable Book) demonstrates the elevation of something as simple as a vacuum cord or a child's lost coat to a poetic work of art. Take a look around, pick up a pencil, and get writing!

Wild Trees: a Story of Passion and Daring

adult

A fascinating and unique read for the wannabe naturalist in all of us, journeying into the perpendicular universe of the world's tallest trees, the California redwoods. Suspended in these trees' crowns, some in excess of 350 feet high above the forest floor is a primeval kingdom of sorts, made up of plants and animals that only a handful of people has ever seen.

This book, Wild Trees, by Richard Preston, revolves around botanist Steve Sillett, who found his calling while making a "free" climb to the top of an enormous redwood in 1987 .There he discovered a world of startling beauty, complexity and richness. He is joined in the quest to document this unseen world by Marie Antoine, herself a botanist and a scholar of lichens and who later on becomes his wife.Two hundred miles to the south of their primary research location,another unfocused son of a wealthy real estate developer, Michael Taylor, who just happens to be afraid of heights,searches for the world's tallest tree. Their obsessive quests lead these three individuals into a binding friendship built on the discovery of some of the most extraordinary creatures that ever lived, the tall trees of California and the Pacific Northwest. Even the author, lending credence to the magnetic pull of this topic, takes up tree climbing, which adds a degree of realism to this thorough and joyous narrative.

Teresa M.

How Starbucks Saved My Life

Going broke is an incredibly humbling experience. I don’t recommend it, believe me. But reinventing one’s self at mid-life is perhaps an even greater challenge. As such, my interest was piqued recently by a story on CBS News Sunday Morning called How Starbucks Saved My Life.

How Starbucks Saved My Life (©2007 Gotham Books) is written by Michael Gates Gill, a Yale graduate with a successful career and a six figure salary, who suddenly, at mid-age, found himself facing unemployment, divorce, and impending health problems. Pondering his bleak future over a cup of coffee one day, an odd twist of fate prompted him to take a job as a barista at Starbucks. Aside from gaining a subsistence-level income and some all-important health insurance benefits, Gill learned a few things about life and living along the way– things that made fundamental changes in the quality of his own life and the lives of those around him.

While his overly reverent tone makes the book read a bit like a Starbucks prospectus (understandable, I guess, since Gill was a top-level advertising executive) and his name-dropping becomes almost incessant at times (though not without purpose), Gill manages to talk openly about respect, diversity, communication, and learning to serve others (something he had never done before).

How Starbucks Saved My Life is a quick and inspiring read. According to the CBS segment, actor Tom Hanks liked it so much that he has already purchased the movie rights and intends to play the lead character himself.

(For more about the Starbucks company culture, try Pour Your Heart Into It by Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz.)

Now, could I have a double espresso, please?

---

Boys Adrift

Sometimes the media gets hooked on a particular topic and it shows up everywhere. For the past few years, there’s been a lot of focus on boys—their education, their motivation levels, and their futures. I’m in the middle of a fascinating new book, Boys Adrift: Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax, which explores this very topic. Sax is a physician and a psychologist, and his arguments are laid out in a manner that is thoughtful and extremely easy to understand. His theories are backed by tons of research, and he’s not afraid to make bold statements. I would recommend this book to anyone who has children, knows children, works with children, has an interest in the environment, has an interest in the modern educational system . . . anyone, really.

Submitted by Cory

Life, Gluten-Free

About 1 in 133 people in the U.S. have celiac disease, a genetic intolerance to gluten, the tiny protein found in wheat, barley and rye. What’s the cure? Simple, never eat gluten again! Much more easily said than done, but Shauna James Ahern learned how, got her health and her spirit back, created a fabulous blog and now has authored a book about her experience.

Gluten-free Girl: how I found the food that loves me back…& how you can too is peppered with delicious recipes, interesting anecdotes about life before and after going gluten-free, and lots of useful information for anyone who must avoid gluten or knows and loves someone who must.

For a quick taste of Ahern’s writing, sample http://www.glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/.

China from Your Favorite Chair

Since it’s almost impossible to visit all the places in the world you might like, “armchair travelling” with a book can provide a informational substitute, or whet your appetite for an actual trip.

That’s the beauty of “China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power.” National Public Radio’s China correspondent Rob Gifford travelled on China’s Mother Road Route 312 for six weeks. His 3000 mile trip took him from Shanghai to a town in the former Turkestan, where it joins the old Silk Road route to Europe. Along the Mother Road, Gifford meets ordinary Chinese citizens, young and old, who are coping with the tremendous changes taking place in modern China. He also provides a look at the history and culture of China. Gifford’s is an informative and entertaining read about a fascinating country.

Submitted by Nancy S.

What’s December for Besides Holidays Anyhow?

Are you trying to avoid thinking about holidays during the month of December? Are you worried about political correctness and tolerance of others’ beliefs? The Kalamazoo Public Library can help! Stop in and pore over a book titled Chase’s Calendar of Events: the Ultimate Go-to Guide for Special Days, Weeks, and Months. Most copies will need to be used within the Library, but last year’s edition might be available to take home.
Find out when Cookie Cutter Week is, when the magazine Playboy was first published, when to celebrate the National Day of the Horse, when/where the first formal cremation took place…the list goes on and on! States were admitted to and seceded from the Union, authors were born/died, (as were sports figures, actors/actresses, political figures, etc.) Nations were dissolved, treaties signed, independences celebrated, and dozens of other events commemorated. Do you remember the movie “Gone With the Wind”? How about the movie “The Titanic”? You guessed it! Each premiered in December. Television shows the likes of “The Simpsons”, “Dragnet”, “The Howdy Doody Show”, and “The Dating Game” were first aired.
Broken down into months, Chase’s Calendar of Events is a virtual plethora of information! The cover of the book states, “12,000 entries, 193 countries, 365 days, all in one book!”
If you need help making up your mind to stop in and peruse Chase’s Calendar, then plan on celebrating “National Make Up Your Mind Day” on December 31st. Make a decision today to come in to the nearest branch of the Kalamazoo Public Library often during 2008 to see what we have to offer!

Submitted by Ann S

Bold Spirit

Having read Peter Jenkin’s engrossing story A Walk Across America, I was quite surprised to find out that he had been preceded in this walk almost 100 years earlier by a woman and her daughter, who traveled from Spokane Washington to New York city, with only the clothes on their backs and $5.00 each!

Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America.Hoping to win the wager and save her family's farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara's curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states as they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders. They confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb.Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women's achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.

Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across America by Linda Lawrence Hunt is one book you will not be able to put down!

Submitted by Martha L.

Middle School Math - Straight from Hollywood

My twenty-something year old neice graduated from college a few years ago with a degree in Mathematics. While several of us in the family (most likely those of us who shyed away from math when WE were in school) wondered what in the world she was going to do with a math degree, I am proud to report that she is gainfully and happily employed as a sixth-grade math teacher and math coordinator at a private, Quaker school in Pennsylvania.

This all comes to mind in light of the new book by Danica McKellar, Math Doesn't Suck: How to survive middle school math without losing your mind or breaking a nail. While the author might be best known from her role as Winnie in the longstanding television show, The Wonder Years, she is also a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in Mathematics and is internationally recognized as a mathematician and an advocate for math eduation.

Her book serves as a guide for students, especially girls, who feel intimidated and/or overwhelmed by middle school math. Each chapter includes instruction, tips and tricks, practice problems, real world examples, and true stories from Danica's own life. Math concepts covered include fractions, decimals, percents, and algebra.

What better way to debunk the myth that girls "can't do" math or that math should be avoided, than to shine the spotlight on an influential young person with the celebrity of Danica McKellar in this academically inspiring context? One thing's for sure...I know what to get my niece for Christmas!

Lofty Dreams

If your first response to the question “Why climb a mountain?” is simply “because it's there”, then why not climb the biggest, the ultimate--Mount Everest. One of my most favorite books is Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. I’m not certain why, because frankly, I like happy endings, I hate the snow, ice, cold weather, and going through the torture described to achieve such a limited goal. This however is a riveting, first-hand account of the unsuccessful and catastrophic expedition up Mount Everest, which took place in March, 1996. Jon Krakauer, an “Outside” magazine contributor and seasoned climber joined New Zealand guide Rob Hall and the Adventure Consultants Expedition. Another well known figure in climbing circles, Scott Fischer, a 40 year old, lead the Mountain Madness Expedition group. Although the teams started out in relatively good weather, by the end of the summit day, eight people were dead. Krakauer describes in compelling, harrowing detail the ill-fated adventure and the factors leading up to the tragic end. I guess this true account is mind boggling to me, in part, because it cost participants at least $65,000 each and for that sum they had the pleasure of experiencing the great hardships of the ascent.

Other books of interest I enjoyed about mountain climbing include:

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places by David Breashears
Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer

Submitted by Teresa M.

NBA Stands for Great Books

Throughout the early part of the ninety nineties, when I was an undergraduate at WMU, I learned about many authors and their works from friends who were studying poetry and creative writing. Of all of these friends, one name seemed to pop up again and again during conversation, leading me to conclude that the author was a departmental favorite at WMU’s creative writing program. His name was Denis Johnson and the collection of stories that everyone was enamored with was Jesus’ Son; which in 1999 was adapted for the big screen and which has become a bit of a cult classic. Johnson’s newest book, Tree of Smoke, won this year’s National Book Award for fiction. Check out this NBA award winner along with other current and past finalists at the Kalamazoo Public Library.

Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Joshua Ferris’s And Then We Came to the End
Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections
Edward P. Jones’ The Known World
Richard Power’s The Echo Maker
Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

Submitted by Ryan

Happy Birthday to Us!

I happen to share a birthday with the Mackinac Bridge. On November 1, 1957, the day I turned five, the bridge was opened to the public for the first time. Since this month is the 50th anniversary of that event, there has been a great deal of publicity about this magnificent structure. Even though I was very young at the time, I can still remember crossing the Straits of Mackinac on the car ferry with my parents and our 1951 Plymouth. Later on, it was really a thrill to be able to travel on the bridge, which is not only wonderfully effective in function but also strikingly beautiful in form. Our library has many books, periodicals, and file materials about the bridge, from the years of the planning process all the way down to the present day. One recent publication I found particularly interesting is NORTHERN MICHIGAN ALMANAC by Ron Jolly (2005), which is shelved with the Local History collection. It has several pages of fascinating facts such as:

Workers employed at the construction site: 3500
Number of steel rivets: 4,851,700
Number of steel bolts: 1,016,600
Height of roadway above the water: 199 ft.
Total length of wire in cables: 42,000 miles
Number of wires in each cable: 12,580
Weight of cables: 11,480 tons
Total weight of bridge: 1,024,500 tons
First snowmobile crossing: February 14, 1970
First birth on bridge: May 11, 1983 [see p. 384 for the story!]
First Amish buggy to cross: June 30, 1973
First bridge walk: September 7, 1959
Highest wind gust recorded: 128 mph on May 9, 2003
Most crossings in a year: 4,936,417 in 1999
Most crossings in a day: 37,846 on June 29, 1996 [see p. 386 for why!]
50 millionth crossing: September 25, 1984
100 millionth crossing: June 25, 1998

This is only a small representation of the vast amount of detail Jolly presents about the northern region. In these days when much of the news about our state is not so good, it’s reassuring to reflect on the great achievements of our citizens as well as the natural beauty of Michigan.

Submitted by David D.

Taxi!

Two books about taxis recently arrived at the library (if you know your Kalamazoo history, you recognize the significance of these yellow cars). Hack: How I Stopped Worrying about What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab by Melissa Plaut started as the author's blog about her new career after being laid off from her copyrighting job. You can imagine the "characters" she encounters on a daily basis. Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver by Graham Russell Hodges traces the driving life from its beginnings in 1907 to its present-day status.

Submitted by Wendy W.

Retirement Revolution

In my father’s later years, he was fond of the expression, “Just when I’ve learned my lesson so well, no one asks me to recite.” During his final two decades, he maintained his lifelong passion for learning and encouraged his contemporaries to stay mentally spry, keep engaged in civic life and live purposefully. I’m reminded of his good example as I look over the array of books in the library’s collection written about making the most of post-retirement years. For example:
· The Power Years: A User’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life, by Ken Dychtwald, 2006
· 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America, by Bill Novelli, 2006
· Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America, by Marc Freeman, 2002
· Longevity Revolution: As Boomers Become Elders, by Theodore Roszak, 2001
· The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, by Gene D. Cohen, 2000.
Don’t you think it’s interesting that the word “revolution” appears in three of these book titles? I think my father would like that!

Submitted by Mary D.

Where Art and Nature Meet

One way to describe the hauntingly beautiful earth sculpture of Andy Goldsworthy is natural minimalism. Using the barest of tools and materials, such as stones, sticks, flowers, water, and other natural resources, Goldsworthy constructs sculptures simple in form, yet lyrical both for their often ephemeral state of being and their spare elegance. Goldsworthy’s life and art are examined in Rivers and Tide: Working With Time, a documentary that examines both his work and his influences. His mesmerizing use of the natural world to build structures that are built for the purpose of changing over time, compliments the intrinsic beauty of nature while remaining very much a singular creation of the artistic mind. Other books about Goldsworthy’s art include:

Passage
Midsummer Snowballs
Hand to Earth: Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture, 1976-1990

Submitted by Ryan

Irish Eyes

Around St. Patrick’s Day we often hear “everyone has a little Irish in them.” While that may not be true, those who do will want to see the latest acquisition of the Local History Room. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland are a goldmine (or at least a pot of gold) of information on the people and communities of the northern half of Ireland immediately prior to the Great Famine. This 39 volume, fully indexed set could help you find your Irish ancestors, the work that they did, the schools and churches they attended, and so much more. Stop in and take a look at those and the other wonderful nuggets on Ireland and its people recently purchased straight from the Ulster Historical Foundation in Belfast. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland can be found in the Local History Room under call number H 941.6 O656.

Submitted by Beth