Blog Post
Two Nanas
by joy k
When two women with the same name meet on the train to Tokyo, neither of them guesses that it’s the beginning of an incredible friendship. Sweet and naive Nana Komatsu is headed to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, Shoji, while glamorous Nana Osaki is pursuing her dream of being a punk rock star. The two Nanas decide to become roommates solely to save on rent, but it’s not long before they’re caught up in the drama of each other’s lives. The manga series Nana is so popular in Japan that it was adapted into a 47-episode anime series as well as two live-action movies. The library owns the first 8 manga volumes in the this ongoing story; catch up on the latest surprising events today!
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #106
by muffy
In this Olympic year, all eyes are on China. Coincidentally, we have a bumper crop of FFF by expat. Chinese writers, as well as a number of outstanding mysteries set in China.
The Eye of Jade, by Chinese exile Diane Wei Liang who fled her country after participating in the Tiananmen Square protests, is an impressive debut.
Set in the late 1990s' Beijing, P.I. Mei Wang was hired by a family friend to track down a jade seal from the Han Dynasty, supposedly destroyed by the Red Guards. Challenging family relationships, bureaucratic intricacies and an unconventional protagonist made for a fascinating read.
Two other outstanding mystery series set in China are: Peter May's Li Yan/Margaret Campbell* series, and the Inspector Chen* series by Xiaolong Qiu.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
The Golden Compass Series: Audiobooks
by Cherie Lee
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass) follows the story of Lyra Belacqua, the secrets surrounding her birth and future, and travel between the worlds.
With the recent film and a revival of the controversy that has always surrounded the Golden Compass series, these books are once more in the public eye. I've been told that even people who like them find the books difficult, but I throughly enjoyed listening to them on audio. This is possibly because they're performed by a full cast complete with sound effects and narration from Philip Pullman himself, making the whole experience more like an old fashioned radio drama than your average audio book. I highly recommend the entire series.
Blog Post
Climbing the Mango Trees
by eby
Actor, Cook, Food Writer, Madhur Jaffrey has accomplished a lot during her life (and is still going strong). Her memoir Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India bridges it all, giving us a look into growing up in India and, of course, a few recipes to bring India into your own home. Although the book was published in 2006, it is still gaining fans, with a recent mention on Splendid Table. Audio of that interview and an older one from KCRW's Good Food is below with links to the full shows.
Here is the audio of her interview on March 8, 2008 on the Splendid Table. You can listen to the entire show on the Splendid Table archives:
Here is the older October 14, 2006 interview on Good Food:
There's also an excerpt from the book and more interviews on npr.org.
If all the talk is making you hungry, AADL has plenty of Madhur Jaffrey's books to keep you occupied. There are also some recipes on BBC Food. Here are just a few of the books we have:
- Madhur Jaffrey's quick & easy Indian cooking
- From curries to kebabs : recipes from the Indian spice trail
- Indian Cooking
- Madhur Jaffrey's step-by-step cooking : over 150 dishes from India and the Far East, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia
- Madhur Jaffrey's world vegetarian
- A taste of India
A word of warning: some of the older cookbooks were before many of the traditional spices were readily available, so they make substitutions.
Blog Post
Kid Bits - For Adults
by ryanikoglu
National Library Week is coming, April 13-19, 2008. El Dia De Los Ninos is April 30 every year. School Library Media Month is April every year. What better time to inform yourselves on Intellectual Freedom. Strong libraries help build strong minds.
Blog Post
The Second City visits The Ark
by manz
The improvisational comedy troupe known as The Second City will bring their shenanigans to The Ark in Ann Arbor on April 10 & 11. Second City was founded in Chicago in the late 50s and has been a springboard for much comedic talent, including Bill Murray, Stephen Colbert, Chris Farley, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Rivers, John Belushi, Alan Arkin and many others. Join the troupe for “One Nation, Under Blog,” an evening of improvised and scripted sketch comedy that is current, interactive and gosh darn funny. Feel like reading too? Check out The Second City almanac of improvisation.
Thursday April 10, 8pm & Friday April 11, 7:30pm. Visit The Ark’s website for more info and ticket information.
Blog Post
PreK Bits - Doggies
by ryanikoglu
We'll do "Doggies" in Preschool Storytime this week @ Malletts Creek and Pittsfield Branches. Doggies is one of my favorite Board Books by Sandra Boynton. The Cake That Mack Ate is out of print, and is still fun to tell. The Great Gracie Chase is Cynthia Rylant's story of the day the dog got out. If you have a dog, you know ALL about this story!
Blog Post
A Literary Dealbreaker?
by jaegerla
Today an interesting topic came up in a discussion on NPR: do a person's reading preferences determine whether or not they are dateable? Would it be a "deal-breaker" to enter a date's home and find a Clive Cussler* novel on his-or-her coffee table? Would whether or not you pursue a relationship with a person depend on their Amazon wish list? What do you think matters more, what a person reads, or how much they actually reflect on what they read? If the latter appeals to you more, the library offers several books with information on critical reading, and feel free to offer your thoughts on this topic in the comment thread for this post!
*Note: If you have a Clive Cussler novel on your coffee table, my apologies.
Blog Post
Grant José No Quarter
by John J. Madonna
Today, kids and adults across the country are calling into work or school sick, conveniently allowing them all to watch Opening Day of baseball. I myself spent many an April 1st (or March 31st,) my favorite national holiday, home “sick” watching the Tigers. Of course, in those days, the Tigers played at The Corner and hadn’t entered their winning drought. But today has special significance beyond Opening Day, and not just because the Tigers enter as heavy October contenders, despite bullpen issues. Today is also the eve of José Canseco’s new book, Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball, a book no one should read.
Vindicated follows 2005’s Juiced, José Canseco’s exposé on many high-profile steroid users in baseball, himself including. He accused players he directly injected/supplied, suspected due to enlarged physiques, and those he suspected due to “c’mon, they’re probably doing steroids.” The gossip novel, full of innuendo, pointed fingers, and flimsy hearsay was meant not shine a light on the steroid problem in baseball (like Game of Shadows slightly dubiously did in 2006,) but to put the former All-Star—who couldn’t buy a spring training invitation in 2005—back into the spotlight.
For Vindicated, José Canseco’s promises to implicate such “Big Names” as Alex Rodriguez, current Tiger Magglio Ordóñez, and Roger Clemens. Magglio Ordóñez, whom Canseco alleges he injected as a White Sock in 2001, somehow didn’t make the cut for Juiced. Of course, Maggs in 2005 was an injury-plagued outfield that had just signed a lucrative and potentially Juan Gonzalez-esque contract with the cellar dweller Detroit Tigers. Of course, now that he’s a batting champion on a contending team, he suddenly (magically?) finds himself among the accused. Oh, and Canseco allegedly tried to blackmail Ordóñez earlier this winter.
This winter, we saw the Mitchell Report name eighty-nine alleged steroid-using baseballmen, Roger Clemens testifying in front of Congress, and a record-breaking home run baseball branded with an asterisk go to Cooperstown… now this. Reading the Mitchell Report, I treaded very lightly, afraid of whom I might find. Only three of my beloved Tigers turned up, all ex-Tigers. You know, Ordóñez is my Tiger, but he could be guilty. A lot of people could be. A lot of the names on the Mitchell Report weren’t big stars with huge physiques, but normal baseball players with normal slugging averages and human helmet sizes, taking steroids not to break records, but just to stay in the game.
Despite the potential magnitude of the steroid problem in baseball, no one really wants to know how deep it runs. Why else would Mitchell Report alumni like Brian Roberts and Andy Pettitte still have jobs right now? Baseball’s trying to stop current steroid use, not expose past abuse. Senator Mitchell’s eighty-nine aren’t the end of it, and everyone knows that. If MLB punished the guys on Mitchell’s list, it couldn’t stop there; they’d have to keep digging deeper, and they’d have to open a huge Pandora’s box of HGH and buttocks injections. And as stupid as it might sound, these guys shouldn’t be punished.
These people broke the law, lied about it, and were basically the worst role models to kids. If we were talking about football’s steroid problem (“What? No that linebacker’s four-hundred pound body is all natural,”) I’d be shouting louder than everybody for consequences. But you know when I—and a lot of other people—stopped calling in sick on April 1st? 1995, the first season after the players’ strike. It ruined my image (illusion?) of baseball as a pastoral, summertime, fun game. A steroid scandal will do the same thing to a lot of kids, only worse. I only started came back to baseball in 2003. Some people never returned. Sure, baseball’ll eventually recover, but not completely. I’m still kind of pissed off about the Black Sox. We’ll never nab all the bad guys here, so maybe we should just keep telling kids and ourselves that our favorite ballplayers’ are clean. As for books like Vindicated, even if you think that baseball should account for every abscess and every spot of backne on its athletes, we should grant Vindicated and José Canseco no quarter. No show should interview him and no one should buy his exercise in self-aggrandisement at the expense of other people’s reputations. “The Battle To Save Baseball.” Indeed.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #105
by muffy
Literature professor (Louisville, Kentucky) Will Lavender’s debut novel Obedience is one tautly strung thriller!
Students at Winchester University’s Logic and Reasoning 204 are greeted on the first day of class with one startling assignment – find a hypothetical missing girl name Polly before the end of term or she will be murdered.
As the clues set forth by the creepy prof. point more toward something real and sinister rather than a logic exercise, three of the students find disturbing personal connections with Polly. What looks like an academic exercise at first could turn deadly.
Obedience hooks you fast and hard. Ride it out and brace for the shock.