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Deb's Recommendations

The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica (Hardcover)

By Lucy Jane Bledsoe
$24.95
ISBN-13: 9780299235000
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: University of Wisconsin Press, 4/2010
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Antarctica is a very cold place and, except for a few scientists, there’s not much there. At least that what’s I thought until I read Bledsoe’s novel. In addition to the many scientists who work there, there are support staff and artists-in-residence with their own reasons for going to the bottom of the world: Rosie, a cook, wants to earn some money so she can end her rambling ways. Mikala, a composer, wants to get over her grief at the death of her lover and connect with the father she never knew. Alice, a geologist, is trying to escape her clingy alcoholic mother and find someone to love. Early on we learn how dear life is, when their plane crashes and a young woman gets separated and dies of hypothermia. It’s a lesson even veterans like Rosie have a hard time remembering. I love novels where the place is almost a character and I came away loving the characters and intrigued by a place that I probably won’t visit, but that I wanted to learn more about.

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife (Hardcover)

By Francine Prose
$24.99
ISBN-13: 9780061430794
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Harper, 10/2009
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Francine Prose, in her new book Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, asks us to reconsider the diary as a work of literature. It’s been relegated to school reading lists and reenactments of the play based on The Diary of a Young Girl. It’s been translated into nearly every language, and people from all over the world visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  Yet most people still consider it the musings of a young girl without taking into account the way Anne grew and her writing improved over the course of their confinement. Particularly fascinating is Prose’s account of Anne’s revisions of the diary in the months before their capture. It’s also interesting the way the play and the movie made the story more palatable. And just as there are holocaust deniers, there are those that believe the diary was fabricated.

Moreover, the book has faced other challenges. In 1983, members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for its removal from school reading lists because it was "a real downer." If that’s the way you choose to see it, then I suppose it is. Obviously, being confined to a relatively small space with 7 other people for over 2 years would not be fun. However, this very young woman told her story with wisdom and humor that imbue her writing with so much life. When we realize that Anne would have been 80 had she lived, it makes us wonder what she might have accomplished had she survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. 

Prose's book caused me to go back and read The Diary. I'm pleased to say that I have been charmed by this young woman as she struggles with her mother, the frustrations she feels as she comes up against the expectations of the her family and others in the annex, the burgeoning love she feels for Peter, all against the worsening in situation in Amsterdam as they wait for liberation or capture. It's the charm, the humor and the prose that have made the story of Anne Frank continue to live, and it’s sad that those who felt the book "a downer" would deprive themselves and others from learning about the significance and beauty of this one life and those who lived with her.   - Deb Morris

The New York Times, Obama: The Historic Journey (Hardcover)

By Vincent Alabiso, Nicholas Callaway, Amy Cloud
$40.00
ISBN-13: 9781594488931
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Callaway Adult, 2/2009
If you’re over the Obama hype and dread another piece of memorabilia in your house, I ask you to reconsider: While it’s no knock on our friends at the Washington Post, the New York Times’ book on Barack Obama’s journey to the presidency is great! Its hundreds of color photographs follow his upbringing, his political ascendancy and its culmination in the historic campaign that brought him to the White House. It also includes articles by some of the New York Times’ best writers (including David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich) and many of the speeches that Obama made throughout the campaign

Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992 (Paperback)

By Brandon Stosuy, Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles
$37.50
ISBN-13: 9780814740118
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: New York University Press, 10/2006
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Up Is Up chronicles the scene in downtown Manhattan during the period from 1974 to 1992. Throw your mind back to when it was common to see posters for fundraisers for women’s health clinics. There’s one here! There’s poetry that spans the decades from Patti Smith to Eileen Myles to Lydia Lunch. Stories by Kathy Acker, Sarah Shulman and Lynne Tillman are here too, as is work by writers and artists lost to AIDS like Keith Haring, Miguel Pinero and David Wojanarowicz. There’s an early appearance of Swimming to Cambodia by Spaulding Gray. For those of you who lived there and experienced it, it’s a trip down memory lane. For those who didn’t, it’s a fascinating look the avant-garde art scene of a great city.

Angels in Africa: Profiles of Seven Extraordinary Women (Hardcover)

By Beth O'Donnell, Kimberley Sevcik
$35.00
ISBN-13: 9780865651685
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vendome Press, 10/2006
What struck me first was the photo of the beautiful young woman on the cover. She is Edina Yahana an environmental activist in Tanzania who’s teaching the men and women of her country the importance of growing trees. She is one of the seven women featured in this book, all working on issues that are important to their country’s development from care of AIDS patients to protection of orphans. Aminate Dieye created a program that trains young girls in non-traditional jobs. In Senegal, that’s not an easy thing to do. O’Donnell who’s a photographer has given us a look into the work each of these women is doing. Kimberley Sevcik wrote the text. There is also information on providing assistance to the women and their work.

Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks From Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West (Hardcover)

By Shannon Mckenna Schmidt, Joni Rendon, Matthew Pearl
$25.00
ISBN-13: 9781426202773
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: National Geographic, 5/2008
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One of the highlights of my trip to Paris was visiting Victor Hugo’s house. It was beautiful and mysterious and decorated in a style that even in his time must have been unusual. For those of us who are fascinated not with lives of movies stars but authors, now there is a guidebook to their homes and haunts. Novel Destinations takes you to Zora Neale Hurston’s Eatonville and to 221B Baker Street, the home of the fictional Sherlock Holmes. The book is full of interesting places like the watering holes frequented by Hemingway to Willa Cather’s childhood home in Nebraska. There are literary festivals, cafes and hotels where the literati dined and slept and the cemeteries where they are buried. It’s great fun for the armchair traveler and pilgrims on Jane Austen’s Bath Walking Tour.

Burton Holmes Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, 1890-1938 (Hardcover)

By Genoa Caldwell, Burton Holmes, Benedikt TASCHEN
$59.99
ISBN-13: 9783822848159
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Taschen, 9/2006
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They say travel broadens the mind. For Burton Holmes that was certainly true. He began traveling with his family as a small child. By the time he died in 1958, he had traveled the world over many times. He’s the man many believe responsible for the travelogue. He would travel to China or Spain and come back with pictures and present lectures about his travels. There’s a wonderful picture of Japanese schoolchildren in 1940 looking at a book called Burton Holmes and the Travelogue. He bought one of the first movie cameras so he could film his travels. There are hundreds of photos in this book, some of them stunning. Each one is a step back in time, from the Kaiser in the trenches to the beautiful Feluccas on the Nile in 1906. It’s great fun

The Book as Art: Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Hardcover)

By Krystyna Wasserman, Johanna Drucker, Audrey Niffenegger
$55.00
ISBN-13: 9781568986098
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Princeton Architectural Press, 10/2006
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For years the National Museum of Women in the Arts has promoted artists’ books. It has a permanent collection devoted to the Book as Art containing over 800 works. This book highlights the work of women featured in an exhibition of the same name. While it is well worth it to see these amazing works in person, this book provides views of the featured work and the rationale for the work of artists from all parts of the globe. They are beautiful, curious, funny, and thought-provoking works. The Book as Art is also a wonderful introduction to this art form.

Unholy Loves (Paperback)

By Lisa Appignanesi
$19.95
ISBN-13: 9781552785010
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: McArthur & Company, 10/2006
While this is not a sequel to Paris Requiem, it features the Comtess de Landois, Marguerite from that book. She is called home to the family estate by her husband who tells her that he plans to adopt an abandoned child that he has found. He also wishes that she resume her wifely duties. The smart and worldly Marguerite has no intention of giving up the life she has enjoyed in Paris, so she sets out to find the child’s true parentage. She becomes embroiled in murder, kidnapping and incest. Where does the Catholic Church fit in all this? Marguerite is a strong intelligent woman with a good detective’s instincts. I hope there will be more books about her adventures.

The Long Mile: The Shango Mysteries (Paperback)

By Clyde W. Ford

ISBN-13: 9780738707853
Availability: Out of Print
Published: Midnight Ink, 10/2005
John Shannon is an ex-cop who has been convicted of killing of a DEA officer. When he’s freed on a technicality, he returns to NYC hoping to find the person who framed him. But his homecoming is not a happy one. He’s arrested as soon as he’s released. Then his son is kidnapped. Not one to give himself over to a system that he feels has failed him, he sets out to find his son and tie the pieces together that landed him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. This is a real page-turner introducing a character that you’ll want to read more about as the series unfolds.

The Illustrated Atlas of Wildlife (Hardcover)

By Channa Bambaradeniya, Cinthya Flores, Joshua Ginsberg
$39.95
ISBN-13: 9780520257856
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: University of California Press, 4/2009
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No matter your age, you’ll love The Illustrated Atlas of Wildlife. Its full color illustrations and photographs show the beauty and diversity of animal life around the world. You can spend hours just going through the pages and learning about things like dry habitats, threats to wildlife, deciduous woodlands and the species that populate them. Discover the delta of Coto de Doñana in Spain, the Saguaro Cactus Community in the Sonoran desert, and the Albertine Rift in East Africa and so much more. It’s great fun!

Wizard of the Crow (Paperback)

By Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O
$16.95
ISBN-13: 9781400033843
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: Anchor, 8/2007
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There’s a photograph by Isaac Julien called Ouaga 2000 Memorial (Burkina Faso) that makes me think of the monument the sycophantic ministers of The Free Republic of Aburiria want to build in honor of the Ruler’s birthday. The monument is called the Stairway to Heaven. The Ruler is the country. He is also god. So when demonstrations break out at the birthday celebration with visitors from the Global Bank present, it can’t possibly be because the people are starving and without work. Enter a starving young man and a young woman demonstrator, who become the Wizard, a trickster offering advice on everything from dealing with enemies to why a particular sycophant can only say two words. All this takes place in this long awaited novel by the exiled Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo. Thiongo was imprisoned and nearly killed by former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi and his henchmen. The novel is full of humor and magical realism and presents a portrait of contemporary Africa through the people of this fictional country.

Africa (Hardcover)

By Olivier Follmi, Gerald Williams
$60.00
ISBN-13: 9780810948327
Availability: Not currently in the store – Usually ships in 1-5 days
Published: ABRAMS, 12/2006
The photograph on the cover is of a young shepherdess named Habiza from Burkina Faso. Hers is one of the dozens of portraits in the beautiful book. So many books on Africa focus on the wildlife, and this book contains some of those shots, it focuses more on the beauty of men and women from Namibia to Senegal. It’s a stunning book!

Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia (Paperback)

By Richard Cook
$30.00
ISBN-13: 9780141026466
Availability: Not currently shipping from publisher – Subject to future availability
Published: Penguin Books, 9/2006
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The best thing about Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia is that it is so opinionated. In the mostly biographical entries about jazz, he pulls no punches in his assessments. On the saxophonist Archie Shepp, “A few recent performances on record have been close to embarrassing. . . .” Along with these observations, he gives a comprehensive look at the music and provides an important recording at the end of each biographical entry. And there are explanations of musical terms that are part of the lexicon of jazz. It’s educational and fun!