Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

This was a great historical fiction read! Set in the slave plantation of Santo Domingo, it is the story of not only the Haitian slave rebellion, but also offers insights into the variety of ways in which whites kept power over slaves and former slaves alike and also the confusing web of family relations. A great read!

Sarah's Key by Tatiana DeRosnay

This book was riveting! I loved the format and, since I am a "new" history buff, I found that learning more about the time period in which this story took place to be eye-opening. I will not spoil any of the plot. That is all I will say except to mention that we are very fortunate to live in a civil society. How long can that last...?

Well written, heart-felt and thought-provoking. Not for children under 12, some sad realities that they may linger and cause them to feel vulnerable.

I will find the author's name - she is French.

Serial

It was time for a quick fiction read for the beach, so I selected a murder mystery by local author N. E. Castle. The first paragraph describes the protagonist's drive up the Plantation Street on-ramp to 290 and her speeding through the S-curve at Holy Cross (complete with the bumps in the road)--What fun! Unfortunately, I found Castle's descriptions of the setting sun shining on Union Station and the traffic snarled at Kelly Square more believable than her characters and their relationships. Mistakes, beginning with the Chevy "Camero" repeatedly misspelled in the first chapter, also detracted from my enjoyment. Even so, the familiar locations make the story seem so close to home, I'll make a point of checking out any of Castle's future works.

Serial is available in print at the SPL.

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)

Calling to mind Malcolm Gladwell’s popular non-fiction books (The Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink), Tom Vanderbilt delves into human behavior, engineering principles, and transportation studies to deliver an interesting analysis of how we move from place to place. He includes a brief history, compares traffic around the world, and comments on the often-unintended consequences of attempts to improve safety on the road.

A Library Journal review begins, “If only all traffic proceeded with the ease and flow it does here with Vanderbilt in the driver's seat.” I liked it, too!

Traffic is available in print at the SPL and on CD through interlibrary loan.

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

Nicholas Carr begins with a history lesson on electricity...how it evolved from water wheels to utilities that centralized production and transmission. The result was a shift in how business could be conducted, and the eventual rise of the middle class in America. Carr compares that water wheel to early computer systems used by single companies, and predicts how the shift to Internet-based networks (the World Wide Computer) may impact all of society. I found his analysis of the effects of YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, and the like fascinating!

"Carr's book is persuasive, well-researched, authoritative and convincing. He's reasonable in his conclusions and moderate in his extrapolations. This is an exceedingly good book. " --Techworld

"The first serious examination of 'Web 2.0' in book form." --The Register

The Big Switch is available in print at the SPL.

The Troubleshooter's Guide to Do-It-Yourself Genealogy

The sub-title says it all--Creative Techniques for Overcoming Obstacles, Removing Roadblocks & Unlocking Your Family History! Written for the intermediate genealogist, W. Daniel Quillen’s latest book demystifies some sources likely overlooked by even experienced researchers. By the time I was finished, the book was sprouting a headdress of yellow sticky notes, and I’d made plans to check out alien registration records, passport applications, and land grants, to name just a few. Quillen even devotes chapters to comparing different types of family tree software and subscription databases, and he ends every chapter with a helpful checklist. The book was published in 2010, so the appendix listing books and websites is up-to-date.

The Troubleshooter's Guide is available in print through Interlibrary Loan, but I may just have to buy a copy of my own!

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

The book opens in 1960 with a secretary, sent to court to pay her boss' speeding fine, not allowed to carry out her mission because she's wearing slacks. From clothing to careers, education to athletics, civil rights movement to anti-war movement, When Everything Changed focuses on the women, famous and not, who worked to advance the cause of gender equality.
Having lived through the time period, I found the stories compelling. I may not have recognized all of the sexist attitudes as such at the time, because they were the norm, but I was delighted when a classmate at SHS challenged the dress code by wearing jeans to school. (Two days later, many of us had jumped on the bandwagon; The female teachers weren't far behind.) I think the book would also be of interest to younger folk who may not often think about a time, not so long ago, when female doctors were scarce and when a woman needed her husband's permission to apply for a credit card.

Author Gail Collins is a New York Times columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times' editorial page. When Everything Changed is available on CD at the SPL and in print through interlibrary loan.

Film connection: "Mona Lisa Smile"...Check out the "What Women Wanted in 1953" special feature on the DVD (also available at the SPL.)

The Checklist Manifesto

In The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande describes the surprising power of the checklist in our increasingly complicated world. His examples, from performing surgery to flying an airplane or building a skyscraper, illustrate how listing critical steps, working as a team, and scheduling communication at crucial points can dramatically improve the outcome of complex tasks. Far from a self-help book, this is an absorbing read...Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Outliers) says of The Checklist Manifesto, "It has been years since I read a book so powerful and so thought-provoking."

Atul Gawande is a surgeon, Harvard professor, and staff writer for The New Yorker. The Checklist Manifesto is available in print at the SPL and on CD through interlibrary loan.

Schooled x 2

While catching up on some of the popular children's lit, I came across two books with the same title. Both are fun, breezy reads, fine for a day at the beach...The first is for middle schoolers, the second's for adults.

Schooled by Gordon Korman
Capricorn Anderson and his grandmother, Rain, are the last residents of Garland Community, a commune begun in the '60s. When Rain winds up in the hospital and Cap must attend public middle school for the first time, his ignorance of pop culture makes him an easy target. I particularly like the shifting point of view as various characters take turns telling the story.
Gordon Korman wrote his first book at age twelve, and many of the dozens he's produced since then are well-liked middle school reads.

Schooled can be found at Sherwood...Look for it in our fall display of stories dealing with bullying, along with The Revealers, Bystander, The Girls, Secret Identity, The Truth About Truman School, and others.

Schooled by Anisha Lakhani
Columbia grad Anna Taggert can barely make ends meet in her new job, teaching at a prestigious private middle school in Manhattan. Before long, she learns the secret of her colleagues' affluence...tutoring. Sporting Chanel bags ("Coach is so public school.") and moving to a Madison Avenue apartment gain Anna the respect of her students and their families. Her dilemma? Anna's uncomfortable doing her private students' work for them, but she's come to enjoy and rely upon the $250/hour income.

Like her main character, Anisha Lakhani is a Columbia alumna. She taught English at the Dalton School in Manhattan. Schooled is available in print through the SPL's interlibrary loan service.

The Last Lecture; by Randy Pausch

On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged. Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all, for generations to come.

This book is a quick read with many funny stories, interesting takes on the world and thought provoking ideas. I highly recommend it and having read it at the library I actually think this is one that I want to go out and buy. I will definitely read and re-read this book. Hope you enjoy!

Still Alice, In Defense of Food

Some of my favorite books are ones friends have recommended, so I'm excited that many staff members have shown interest in a book-sharing blog!

I don't often give myself time to read, and all too often I fall asleep when I do sit down with a book. So I'm a big fan of audio books,which allow me to read while quilting, walking on the treadmill, or driving to the grocery store. (I thought about listening in the grocery store until I read Why We Make Mistakes, and I re-considered...)

Let me start off by sharing a couple of books that I've enjoyed recently:

Still Alice by Lisa Genova, 2009.
By all outward appearances, Harvard professor Alice Howland shares a storybook life with her successful husband and three grown children. But a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease at age 50 confirms Alice's fear that episodes of confusion are more than mere "senior moments." Alice must re-evaluate her self image and learn to live in the moment as her world changes in this moving novel.

Lisa Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard and writes a column for the National Alzheimer's Association. Still Alice is available in print and on CD at the Shrewsbury Public Library.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan, 2008.
The author of The Omnivore's Dilemma takes a fresh look at how the Western diet and a nutrient-by-nutrient approach to eating have replaced the traditional foods our ancestors ate, and how our health has suffered because of it. His advice? "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It's enough to make me think twice before ordering at the drive-through or reaching for the processed "edible foodlike substances" that fill our supermarket shelves. :-)

Pollan is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. Newsweek named him one of the top ten New Thought Leaders of this decade. In Defense of Food is available in print at the SPL and on CD through inter-library loan.