Blog Post
New Year’s Resolution: Write a Bioblog
by Van
Bioblogs: Resumes for the 21st Century by Michael Holley Smith.
From the back cover of the book: "What is a Bioblog? It is a stunning, attention-getting, graphics-based art form that workers of the future will use to get hired by the best employers. A Bioblog will make you, as a knowledge worker, stand out from the pack of job seekers. It will present a unique version of you and tell employers what you can do for them in the future, as opposed to what you have done for different employers in the past. The old standard is no more. Bioblogs are the resumes of the future."
Blog Post
eve Contemporary Cuisine Methode Traditionelle
by Van
eve: Contemporary Cuisine Methode Traditionnelle by Eve Aronoff is a beautiful and daunting cookbook, celebrating the food from the restaurant in Kerrytown.
Be sure you have thoroughly read the recipes before attempting to prepare them. You may need to make a trip to a local Asian or Middle Eastern ethnic food store, order some spices online, run out to Zingerman’s, Durham’s Tracklements, Monahan’s Seafood Market, Sparrow’s Meat Market, Morgan and York, or the Farmer’s Market. You may have to prepare some of the ingredients listed before attempting the main recipe.
For me the recipes are more likely to entice me to eat at eve than to attempt to actually cook the dishes. The chapter on Accompaniments has some recipes that are simpler. Even here the Fingerling Potatoes are best fried in rendered duck fat pulled from Durham Tracklement’s cured duck breast prosciutto.
In addition to the recipes and the lovely photographs there are occasional charming pieces by Eve Aronoff about the restaurant, her culinary background, her family, local food purveyors, and members of the staff.
Blog Post
Baby Bits - Shower Them With Books
by ryanikoglu
There's a Blizzard of NEW books at the library perfect for reading to baby. Shower them with Books and some day they'll read to you! My recent discoveries are Overboard! by Sarah Weeks; The First Day Of Winter by Denise Fleming; The Cats's Meow by Warren Kimble; Mommy Carry Me Please! by Jane Cabrera; Fly Little Bird by Tina Burke; Sail Away Little Boat by Janet Buell; Time To Get Up by David Milgrim; and Bebe Goes Shopping by Susan Middleton Elya.
Blog Post
Heavenly Houdini
by StoryLaura
Houdini fans will delight in the rush of biographies about the fascinating daredevil/ghost chaser/magician. My personal favorite is Escape!: the story of the Great Houdini by Fleischman,Sid, award winning author, who was enchanted with magic as a child and became a friend of Houdini’s widow. She gave him the never before seen photos for this book. Other new biographies of the infamous magician are Houdini: world's greatest mystery man and escape king by Kathleen Krull and Harry Houdini: a magical life by Elizabeth MacLeod
Blog Post
“I am not so bad a person once you get to know me . . .”
by K.C.
Iggy gets kicked out of high school and there’s no one at home for him to tell. His mother has been gone for days, his father is stoned on the couch and the phone’s been disconnected, so even his social worker can’t get through.
Walking away from his public housing, Iggy sets out to make something of his life. Not an easy task when he has no skills and his only friend is mixed up with the dealer who got his mom hooked.
Iggy’s got problems galore, but Iggy also has the kind of wisdom that lets him see what no one else can. Try Saint Iggy.
Blog Post
Great stuff I have been reading...
by erin
I read a lot of great graphic novels and manga this past year and some of the titles that really left lasting impressions on me include: Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihrio Tatsumi, the seminal gekiga style mangaka. The manga series One Piece by Eiichiro Oda - wacked out and super fun pirate tales jammed with memorable characters, places and stories. Another is Ellen Forney's I Love Led Zeppelin - yet another wild ride celebrating alternative lifestyles and musings on memories. Rounding out the list are Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: a family Tragicomic - yes, it's as good as they say it is! Be sure to check out her Dykes to Watch Out For collections too...
Blog Post
”It’s easy to become anything you wish…”
by anned
“…so long as you’re willing to forfeit your soul.”
Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel, American Born Chinese, follows three separate stories: the Monkey King who wants to be seen as a god; Jin Yang, the only Chinese-American attending a predominantly white suburban school; and Danny, a white adolescent trying to maintain a social standing while being visited yearly by his boorish Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee. Yang skillfully weaves the three stories into one (with the help of an Herbalist’s wife and Transformers) while exploring self-image, acceptance, and pride.
Yang’s humor and simplified drawing style highlight his talent for storytelling. It’s no wonder this book was a 2006 finalist for the National Book Award in the category of Young People’s Literature—a first for a graphic novel.
Blog Post
Time's 2006 Book of the Year
by anned
This year, a comic book holds the number one place on Time Magazine’s 10 Best Books of the year—Alison Bechdel’s memoir in comics form, Fun Home.
Bechdel beautifully tells the story of her life, and her father’s life. After her father’s death (believed to be suicide), Bechdel retraces her formative years by contemplating the similarities and distance between two people living in the same house.
Blog Post
A memoir on the love of art
by Maxine
Patricia Hampl, author of A Romantic Education has written a new memoir, Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime. The book starts with a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago where she encounters a painting by Matisse titled "Woman Before an Aquarium." The painting sets off a series of meditations on the act of introspection and its effect on art. In the process, Hampl discusses the artists Delacroix and Ingres and the journals of Katherine Mansfield. She also describes the career of Jerome Hill, a documentary filmaker from her hometown of St. Paul. A starred review in Booklist states, "Hampl does with words what Matisse does with line and color, that is, reaches to the essence of perception, 'not simply what was seen, but how seeing was experienced.'"
Blog Post
Jumping the Scratch
by K.C.
Jamie’s always heard that bad things come in threes. So after his cat, Mister, dies, his father leaves, and his aunt Sapphy has an accident that causes her memory to develop a skip, Jamie hopes his life will go back to being as normal. But unfortunately there’s one more bad thing in store for Jamie-something he’d give anything to forget.
Jamie tries to find the trigger that will help Sapphy’s memory jump the scratch, like the needle on her favorite Sinatra record, but it’s Aunt Sapphy who, along with a curious girl named Audrey, helps Jamie unravel the mysteries of memory and jump the scratch in his own life. [from the bookjacket]
Read Jumping the Scratch or listen to it on CD