Blog Post
Gary Webb author of Dark Alliance found dead two years ago
by Ben P
Gary Webb broke the story in the San Jose Mercury News of the link between the CIA, Contras and the crack epidemic in Los Angeles that turned to the book Dark Alliance. His articles have been archived on the web here with list of AADL search of the contras. Plus video in his own words and an interview.
Blog Post
The Rouge: Photographs by Michael Kenna at UMMA
by muffy
This past weekend The Rouge: Photographs by Michael Kenna opened at the University of Michigan Museum of Art Off/Site, its temporary home while the museum is under renovations.
“English landscape photographer Michael Kenna first toured the Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1992 and returned to the site over a number of years. The resulting photographs capture the smoky atmosphere, the dramatic structures, and the bold silhouettes that give this early twentieth-century technical marvel at the center of modern American industry its character.”
Kenna is not the first photographer to take an interest in the Rouge Plant. While Charles Sheeler’s famous Rouge Plant images were admittedly Kenna’s inspiration, others like Diego Rivera have taken a more painterly approach to this subject in his mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Check time/date for scheduled docent guided tours of the exhibition and read up on Michael Kenna in the library's collection.
Blog Post
Pas de duck
by joy k
Fairy tales meet ballet in the anime series Princess Tutu. The mysterious Herr Drosselmeyer offers Duck—a sweet but clumsy ballet student—the chance to help one of her classmates. When she accepts, he gives her a pendant that transforms her into the magical Princess Tutu, whose beautiful dancing has the power to heal people’s hearts. There’s just one problem: whenever Duck acts like a duck, she turns into one. Quack! Is she a girl dreaming of being a duck, or a duck dreaming of being a girl?
The library also has lots of books about ballet and sound recordings of the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, both of which are referenced in the series.
Blog Post
The Play Ground
by Albert
The Play Ground read Moss Hart's classic autobiography ACT ONE when we were young and we have been fans of this brilliant man ever since. It details his rags to riches life including his longtime collaboration with the moody George Kaufman. This weekend the UM Department of Theatre & Drama will present YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU which opened in 1937 and was the third hit by the golden playwriting team. The play won the coveted Pulitzer Prize, a rarity for a comedy. Kaufman and Hart wrote an amazing eight plays during their ten-year collaboration, each wildly successful including The Man Who Came to Dinner and I'd Rather Be Right. The Play Ground will happily have an aisle seat at the Power Center this weekend. League Ticket Office 734-764-2538, December 7-10.
Blog Post
Just In Case... Justin Case
by erin
Convinced that fate is out to get him, fifteen-year-old David Case assumes a new identity in the hope of avoiding what he believes is certain doom... David takes on the identity of "Justin Case" and then meets an older and unusual female photographer who takes photos of Justin after he revamps his identity. Justin's new look catches the eye of many - that and the fact that he has an imaginary greyhound dog that goes with him everywhere. Just in Case by Meg Rosoff is an interesting, if not entirely believable, tale of fate, identity and death. With a mildly telepathic toddler thrown in the mix this is an unusual read.
Blog Post
Rilke remembered
by Maxine
Today is the birthday of poet, Rainer Maria Rilke who was born on December 4, 1875 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Known as one of the greatest lyrical poets, Rilke spent most of his life traveling and supported himself by getting rich noblewomen to fall in love with him. In one of his most famous works,Letters to a Young Poet,he says:" Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write." Rilke followed his own advice, producing many works, both poetry and prose, including more than 400 poems in French. Rilke was admired by many modern poets including W.H. Auden and James Merrill.
Blog Post
NYTBR's Top 10 Best Books of the Year: the Five Non-fiction Titles
by Van
Annotations are from the New York Times.
FALLING THROUGH THE EARTH:A Memoir by Danielle Trussoni
“This intense, at times searing memoir revisits the author's rough-and-tumble Wisconsin girlhood, spent on the wrong side of the tracks in the company of her father, a Vietnam vet who began his tour as "a cocksure country boy" but returned "wild and haunted," unfit for family life and driven to extremes of philandering, alcoholism and violence. Trussoni mixes these memories with spellbinding versions of the war stories her father reluctantly dredged up and with reflections on her own journey to Vietnam, undertaken in an attempt to recapture, and come to terms with, her father's experiences as a "tunnel rat" who volunteered for the harrowing duty of scouring underground labyrinths in search of an elusive and deadly enemy.”
THE LOOMING TOWER: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
“In the fullest account yet of the events that led to the fateful day, Wright unmasks the secret world of Osama bin Laden and his collaborators and also chronicles the efforts of a handful of American intelligence officers alert to the approaching danger but frustrated, time and again, in their efforts to stop it. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, builds his heart-stopping narrative through the patient and meticulous accumulation of details and through vivid portraits of Al Qaeda's leaders. Most memorably, he tells the story of John O'Neill, the tormented F.B.I. agent who worked frantically to prevent the impending terrorist attack, only to die in the World Trade Center.”
MAYFLOWER: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
“This absorbing history of the Plymouth Colony is a model of revisionism. Philbrick impressively recreates the pilgrims' dismal 1620 voyage, bringing to life passengers and crew, and then relates the events of the settlement and its first contacts with the native inhabitants of Massachusetts. Most striking are the parallels he subtly draws with the present, particularly in his account of how Plymouth's leaders, including Miles Standish, rejected diplomatic overtures toward the Indians, successful though they'd been, and instead pursued a "dehumanizing" policy of violent aggression that led to the needless bloodshed of King Philip's War.”
THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
"When you can eat just about anything nature has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety," Pollan writes in this supple and probing book. He gracefully navigates within these anxieties as he traces the origins of four meals - from a fast-food dinner to a "hunter-gatherer" feast - and makes us see, with remarkable clarity, exactly how what we eat affects both our bodies and the planet. Pollan is the perfect tour guide: his prose is incisive and alive, and pointed without being tendentious. In an uncommonly good year for American food writing, this is a book that stands out.”
THE PLACES IN BETWEEN by Rory Stewart
"You are the first tourist in Afghanistan," Stewart, a young Scotsman, was warned by an Afghan official before commencing the journey recounted in this splendid book. "It is mid-winter - there are three meters of snow on the high passes, there are wolves, and this is a war. You will die, I can guarantee." Stewart, thankfully, did not die, and his report on his adventures - walking across Afghanistan in January of 2002, shortly after the fall of the Taliban - belongs with the masterpieces of the travel genre. Stewart may be foolhardy, but on the page he is a terrific companion: smart, compassionate and human. His book cracks open a fascinating, blasted world miles away from the newspaper headlines.”
Blog Post
Before J.K. Rowling . . .
by K.C.
Meet Ursula LeGuin, Terry Pratchett, Madleleine L’Engle, Garth Nix, and many other fantasy writers in The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy. Read about their childhoods, who influenced them, how they found their niche in the world of fantasy, and what advise they have for people who want to write.
One interesting aspect of the interviews is to learn the influence of certain life experiences on these people’s writing. When asked if growing up in England during World War II affected her as a writer, Diana Wynne Jones responds: “ . . . the entirety of the world as far as I was concerned was stark-staring crazy in a most menacing way . . . Later, I came to think that if only people then had read a little more fantasy, they would have know Hitler for a dark lord.”
Blog Post
TOP 5 FICTION OF 2006!
by ajax
The New York Times has just announced its list of the 10 best books of 2006! In fiction, these are the top 5:
Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart, called 'equal parts Gogol and Borat', it's about the son of one of the richest men in Russia, a young man who is obsessed with rap music and all things American;
Collected Stories of Amy Hempel,Hempel's fourth collection of highly-regarded short stories;
The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud,a comedy of manners set in Manhattan in 2001 on the brink of 9/11;
The Lay of the Land, by Richard Ford, the 3rd installment in his serial about Frank Bascombe, set in Florida over Thanksgiving 2000 (the first two were "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day";
and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl, a murder mystery with each of the chapters titled for a classic in literature.
We hope you'll take a look at these top fiction selections!
Blog Post
Bone (in color!)
by anned
If you missed out on the first run of this great comic series (originally released from 1994-2004 by Cartoon Books) you won’t want to miss Scholastic’s re-release. The writer/illustrator, Jeff Smith, is currently working with colorist Steve Hamaker to color all nine volumes, which were previously released in black and white.
The story follows the adventures of three cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone as they are run out of their hometown of Boneville and find themselves in a mysterious valley. There they encounter giant rat creatures, swarms of locusts, dragons, princesses, and racing cows. It’s a fantasy saga that doesn’t take itself too seriously all the time. Take Smith's humor, throw in a little adventure, romance, and suspense, and you have a comic that appeals to all audiences.
Visit Jeff Smith's website to learn more about Bone.
You will find the new Scholastic color versions through volume four in our collection (volume 5 is due out next February):
1.Out from Boneville
2.The Great Cow Race
3.Eyes of the Storm
4.The Dragonslayer
AADL also has some of the black and white Cartoon Books releases:
1.Out from Boneville
3.Eyes of the Storm
4.The Dragonslayer
6.Old Man’s Cave
8.Treasure Hunters