Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, by Kevin Roose

Some college students spend a semester at the Sorbonne, but Brown University undergraduate, Kevin Roose, choose to spend his semester at Liberty University, the largest Christian fundamentalist University in the United States.  Raised a Quaker in a socially progressive household, Mr. Roose goes undercover and discovers a complex environment making friends and finding his way through a dramatically different world.   Well written, funny, filled with interesting observations, I hope we’ll have the opportunity to be reading other works in the future from this first time author.

You can learn more about the book on the author’s blog, or in this interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: Nancy J.

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Remembering Anne Frank

June 12 is the 80th anniversary of the birth of Anne Frank, whose Jewish family was forced into hiding during World War II. Though she lived only until the age of 15, Anne recorded her girlish hopes and her private fears in a diary that has become one of the most widely read books in the world. First published in 1947, it became an immediate bestseller and has since been translated into 67 languages. You can find Library copies in the Children’s Room, Young Adult, and Adult areas, as well as in Large Print, CD and tape. 

To learn more about Anne and her family, the Library owns many biographies and other books about Anne Frank for both children and adults.  Consider such selections as Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped Hide the Frank Family, by Miep Gies, Roses from the Earth: The Biography of Anne Frank by Carol Ann Lee, or Ellen Feldman’s moving novel, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank.  Or listen to the recording of Elegy for Anne Frank, by Lukas Foss.

You can also visit the website for the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, with information on worldwide events to mark the occasion of Anne Frank’s birth.

Job Search help for graduates (and others!)

Since this spring’s college graduates are entering one of the toughest job markets in decades, they’ll need advice and assistance to take the first steps toward a successful career. The library can help, with resources on networking, writing resumes, interviewing and landing a job that matches the applicant’s strengths. If you’re looking for your first job, or you know someone who is, check out our new offerings, including Knock ’Em Dead 2009: The Ultimate Job Search Guide and You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path from Chaos to Career. And don’t forget the resources in our online Career Center, our Job Search blog, or our online databases, which can help you to explore careers, research businesses, or take practice tests.The Library also offers a class in Applying for a Job Online (if you can’t make it to a class, you can view the class handout here.)  See a Reference Librarian if you need help.

Nothing with Strings: NPR’s Beloved Holiday Stories, by Bailey White

The short stories collected here were originally read by the author on “All Things Considered,” one on each Thanksgiving Day over a number of years, although most are not about that holiday. Magical, quirky, charming and a little sad, they are set in small Southern towns. I especially enjoyed the title story and the story “Meals-on-Wheels.”

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

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11 Books in 15 Minutes

1)  Joy School – Elizabeth Berg – Yes, she writes chick lit, but she captures the innermost thoughts of people that they’d never want anyone else to know about and she does it in incredible detail. This book in particular, about a 13 year old girl trying to find her way, is particularly beautiful and heartbreaking.

 

2)  Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – Very Gothic in style, which is not my thing – but this book kept me reading breathlessly all the way through. What a storyteller! I’ve recommended this to everyone who will listen, and they have all LOVED it.

 

3)  Neither Here nor There – Bill Bryson – this guy is absolutely hilarious as he takes you on his travels through Europe. He is probably better known for his book about the Appalachian Trail (A Walk in the Woods), but this one is my favorite.

 

 

4)  Stiff – Mary Roach – About all the different things that can happen to dead bodies. Sounds absolutely horrific, but she makes it fascinating – and hilarious! I would like to be friends with this person as she would at turns inform me and make me laugh.

 

5)  Julie and Julia – Julie Powell – Yes, this is coming to a multiplex near you this summer, but this book had me laughing out loud the whole time I was reading. This woman who is unsatisfied with her work-life decides to spend a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Particularly great read for foodies, but I found Julie to be a very worthwhile companion when discussing what happened around the recipes too.

6)  Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert – some found this to be self-satisfied rambling, but I loved it. Did not care so much for the India section, but Italy and Indonesia were wonderful. This is another woman that I’d like to have dinner with sometime -she writes about her personal struggles in a very endearing and at times hilarious way.

 

7)  Wallflower at the Orgy – Nora Ephron – Wonderful essays from the 1970s. You get a little history and a lot of hilarity.

8)  The Soloist – Mark Salzman – novel about a failed violin prodigy and a court case in which he serves on jury duty. Beautifully written.

9)  The Music Teacher – Barbara Hall – an incredibly finely wrought main character. This book drew me right in from the first page. A somewhat quiet, personal novel about the human condition.

 

10)  From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E. L. Konigsburg – One of my favorite novels from childhood. This adult woman writes about the lives of children SO evocatively. All her books contain characters you’re not likely to forget. The first book that made me realize I loved reading.

 

11)  The Hours – Michael Cunningham – Depressing as all get out, but SO beautifully written. I just love how he connected 3 seemingly disparate stories – all equally gorgeous, evocative and sad… yet with a sense of grace when all is said and done.

All books reviewed by:  MFB

Remembering D-Day

June 6 marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the largest invasion in military history. More than 150,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy that day in 1944, finally gaining a foothold despite pounding from German forces. Many books and movies have chronicled this epic battle, from Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day to Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. For an examination of the toll this fateful day took on one American town, check out The Bedford Boys, Alex Kershaw’s riveting account of a small community that lost 19 men during the first minutes of the battle.

A Master’s Parting Gift

The world lost one of its greatest literary minds in January with the death of John Updike. But as fate would have it, Updike left a collection of short fiction unpublished at the time of his death. My Father’s Tears and Other Stories will be Updike’s last contribution to a remarkable body of work. In this collection of 18 stories, to be published June 2, Updike takes us from his native Pennsylvania to Spain to India and back again, offering a multi-faceted portrait of the American experience. The stories and their subjects may vary, but the constant is Updike’s graceful, poignant, keenly observed prose.

Without a Map, by Meredith Hall

In 1965, when Meredith Hall became pregnant and gave her child up for adoption, she was expelled from school, and her parents and neighbors in her small New Hampshire town shunned her.  Powerful and unflinchingly honest, this memoir recounts the life journeys through which she came to terms with those early losses, as well as her reunion with her son years later.  While that reunion is more complicated than a fairytale ending, this story is ultimately full of both hope and forgiveness.

You can hear an NPR interview with the author and read an excerpt here.

Rating:  **** Very, very good
Reviewed by:  stc

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The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge, by Malcolm Shuman

After many years away, true-crime author Colin Douglas returns home to Louisiana, to revisit both an unsolved murder and his childhood memories.  Based on a true story, this novel is a quick read with a moody sense of place.  The murder is the hook, but the exploration of how adults deal with their past is the real story here.  You don’t have to be a big mystery reader to enjoy this one.

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: stc

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Dry, by Augusten Burroughs

This second memoir by the author of Running with Scissors chronicles his efforts to overcome alcoholism at a Minnesota rehab clinic ’s 30 day inpatient program and afterwards back in Manhattan. Who would have thought this could be a funny topic? Witty and entertaining on this very serious issue, Burroughs comes across as “sympathetic even when he is neither likeable nor admirable.” I listened to the audio version narrated by the author.

RATING: * * * A good read
Reviewed by: kh

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