Blog Post
A long journey home
by Maxine
On March 23, 1806, Lewis and Clark began their journey back from the Pacific coast to the East to report on their expedition. The winter had been brutally cold and wet. They had traveled about 4,000 miles from St. Louis and had been gone almost two years.
Lewis and Clark thought they could avoid the trip back over land by getting on a merchant ship but there were none to be found. And so, without much food or supplies, they began the trek back. In six months, they arrived in St. Louis.
Blog Post
Slowing Food, Trading Seeds
by annevm
Slow Food Huron Valley is gearing up for spring events promoting locally produced foods and sustainable agriculture. On April 12 there is a membership meeting and Michigan cheese tasting. The library has lots of resources on slow food, including the book Slow Food: The case for taste. Keep an eye out this Saturday March 24 for the second annual Project Grow Seed Swap from 10 a.m. to noon at the Leslie Science Center, 1831 Traver Road in Ann Arbor. Even if you don’t swap seeds, you are welcome at this event and people will help you get started.
Blog Post
Genealogical Society to hold session on writing your life story
by ulrich
Have you ever thought of writing stories from your life or compiling an autobiography? The next meeting of the Washtenaw County Genealogical Society will feature Stephanie Kadel Taras, a professional personal biographer, speaking on "One Story at a Time" in a hands-on workshop designed to inspire individuals to craft their own life stories. The program, which is open to all, will take place at the Education Center Auditorium, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Campus, 5303 Elliott Drive, Ypsilanti on Sunday, March 25, 2007. For more information on the speaker check out her web site. For additional help check out some of the library's books on writing your life story and leave a legacy for your family and descendants.
Blog Post
New Fiction on the New York Times Best Sellers List (3/18/07)
by Mazie
I have been a fan of Robert Crais and his Elvis Cole series since Elvis first appeared in The Monkey's Raincoat in 1987. I was disappointed that his latest was featuring Cole's silent sidekick Joe Pike. However, from the moment I picked it up, I could not put The Watchman down, reading late into the night. It debuted at #5 on this week's List.
I am not sure I can go along with Pike's situational ethics but oh what a thrilling adventure this was. At the end of the day, Joe Pike made the smart-alecky Elvis seem lightweight and definitely not your first choice in a life or death situation.
Other new titles are Shopaholic & Baby by Sophie Kinsella (aka Madeleine Wickham), The Taste of Innocence by romance author Stephanie Laurens, and Innocent Traitor by best-selling Tudor historian, Alison Weir.
Blog Post
Women on the move
by Maxine
March is Women's History Month, a time to celebrate the past accomplishments of American women and those who continue to work for women's rights. March 22 is the anniversary of two significant events for women. On that day in 1972, the Senate passed the 27th amendment, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. Known as the Equal Rights Amendment, the law was then sent to the states for ratification. Even with an extension from Congress, the ERA failed to pass, short of three votes.
Coincidentally, on March 22, 1893, the first women's collegiate basketball game was played at Smith College. Women's basketball has seen an upsurge of popularity since then, with the formation of the WNBA in 1997 and the increase in national coverage of women's college basketball games.
Blog Post
Toast Spring in Michigan with Wine
by annevm
Time to get ready for the spring wine season around Ann Arbor. Coming up April 21 and 22, there’s a wine-and-food-pairing weekend planned by the Southeast Michigan Pioneer Wine Trail. Then on May 5 there is Ann Arbor Art Center’s WineFest, a great chance to taste dozens of wines from around the world and to support the center. If you're just wanting to re-stock your cellar with good wine, check out the new book Andrea Robinson’s 2007 wine buying guide for everyone.
Blog Post
Lulu Blooker Prize Short-List for Non-Fiction
by Van
A blook is a blog book, a book that started as a blog and eventually generated a book. And Blooker Prize is obviously a take-off on the Booker Prize. The Sunday (London) Times (3-18, 2007) quotes Peter Freedman of the prize organizer Lulu.com, an online publisher, “It’s clear that grand publishing houses, which perhaps once had little regard for online writing, are now mining blogs and websites for the next big author.”
The Short-List (annotations are from the Lulu Blooker Prize website)
Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong – www.myDD.com and Markos Moulitsas – www.dailykos.com
“This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running – and ruining- our country.
Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement – of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors – that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed.
A must-read book for anyone with an interest in the future of American democracy.”
My Secret: a PostSecret Book by Frank Warren – www.postsecret.com
“The sensational PostSecret project returns with a never-before-seen collection of postcards created by teens and college students from around the world. Compiled by Frank Warren, postsecret.com founder and author of the national bestseller PostSecret, the handmade cards bear compelling and personal messages that have remained secret – until now. Raw and revealing, My Secret expresses the hopes, fears, and wildest confessions of young people everywhere.”
My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell – www.cbftw.blogspot.com
“Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army – and ended up as a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the absurd and frightening events surrounding him, he started writing a blog about the war – and how it differed from the government’s official version. But as his blog’s popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the army couldn’t control – despite its often hilarious efforts to do so.”
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas by Seth Godin – sethgodin.typepad.com
“Collected here for the first time are eight years of his very best blog posts, magazine columns, and e-books. On literally every page, Small Is the New Big offers ideas and stories that can change how you work, what you buy, and how you see the world.”
So Close: Infertile and Addicted To Hope by Tertia Albertyn – www.tertia.org
(book is only available to purchase in South Africa, price in rand)
“What happens when you start trying for a family…and trying, and trying some more? How far do you go to achieve your dream of having children? So Close is the heart wrenching, exhilarating, devastatingly funny story of Tertia Albertyn’s battle with infertility…During Tertia’s journey everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Until, finally, everything goes just right.”
Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language from the South of France by Kristin Espinasse – french-word-a-day.typepad.com
"A heart-winning collection from an American woman raising two very French children with her French husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the language."
Blog Post
Spring Arrives Today
by Van
Spring: a Spiritual Biography of the Season, edited by Gary Schmidt & Susan M. Felch, groups essays, poems, and Shaker hymns in a five part (Stirrings, Awakenings, Growth, Pilgrimage, and Dance) celebration of Spring.
The editors write: “Spring is the season that simultaneously calls us to celebration and to a sober sense of gratitude for the time that we have been given. The grace of renewal should lead to gratitude for the newness, and it should lead to an acute awareness of our need for renewal.”
The essayists and poets include Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall, Noel Perrin, Annie Dillard, and many others. This book is one of a series of four Spiritual Biographies of the Seasons.
To read Jane Kenyon’s spring poem, Mud Season, click on Read More
Mud Season
Here in purgatory bare ground
is visible, except in shady places
where snow prevails.
Still, each day sees
the restoration of another animal:
a sparrow, just now a sleepy wasp;
and, at twilight, the skunk
pokes out of the den,
anxious for mates and meals….
On the floor of the woodshed
the coldest imaginable ooze,
and soon the first shoots
of asparagus will rise,
the fingers of Lazarus….
Earth’s open wounds – where the plow
gouged the ground last November –
must be smoothed; some sown
with seed, and all forgotten.
Now the nuthatch spurns the suet,
resuming its diet of flies, and the mesh
bag, limp and greasy, might be taken
down.
Beside the porch step
the crocus prepares an exaltation
of purple, but for the moment holds its tongue….
Blog Post
Today is the First Day of Spring
by Van
Celebrate by reading some spring poems from The Language of Spring: Poems for the Season of Renewal, selected by Robert Atwan, Introduction by Maxine Kumin.
Theodore Roethke Vernal Sentiment
Though the crocuses poke up their heads in the usual places,
The frog scum appear on the pond with the same froth of
green, And boys moon at girls with last year’s fatuous faces,
I never am bored, however familiar the scene.
When from under the barn the cat brings a similar litter, -
Two yellow and black, and one that looks in between, -
Though it all happened before, I cannot grow bitter:
I rejoice in the spring, as though no spring ever had been.
Blog Post
Laurie Halse Anderson to appear @ Nicola's!
by erin
With her new book Twisted ready to hit shelves Laurie Halse Anderson is hitting the road. Laurie will be at Nicola's Books next Tuesday, March 27 @ 7:00 PM. Laurie is best known for her award-winning, bestseller, Speak - as well as Prom and Fever 1793. Laurie visited AADL in 2005 - she's a fabulous speaker - be sure to check her out!