Blog Post
Jamie Lee Curtis to Kids: Make Good Choices
by Eartoground
Jamie Lee Curtis has a rhythmic new children's book out, Is There Really a Human Race?, with illustrations by Laura Cornell. The frenzied race metaphor plays out through this picture book, and at one point a boy tells us that if we don't help each other, we'll all crash. Curtis joins a chorus of other Baby Boomers in hoping that children will one day make our world a better place. Admirable, that hope.
Blog Post
Local author's book featured on PBS today
by amy
Local author Nancy Shaw's, Sheep on a Ship will be featured on Between the Lions today at 1:30 p.m. on the Detroit station, WTVS, with a repeat next Tuesday, September 12, at the same time. Click here to find out the PBS schedule for channels 23 and 28.
Blog Post
Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads: The Partly Cloudy Patriot
by amy
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This is one of three titles under consideration for this year's Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads, which will focus on We The People… - the many people that we are, the diverse communities we have created, and the challenges we face in fostering a continuing sense of belonging and civic engagement in a rapidly changing world.
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell — widely hailed for her inimitable narratives on public radio's This American Life — ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?
What did you think of this book? Tell us!
Blog Post
Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man who would Cure the World
by amy
This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.
Paul Farmer is a doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist and the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant. In medical school, he found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.
The book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer--brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti--blasts through convention to get results.
Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.'s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.
Blog Post
Ann Arbor/Ypsilant Reads: Better Together: Restoring the American Community
by amy
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This is one of three titles under consideration for this year's Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads, which will focus on We The People… - the many people that we are, the diverse communities we have created, and the challenges we face in fostering a continuing sense of belonging and civic engagement in a rapidly changing world.
In Better Together, bestselling author Robert Putnam and longtime civic activist Lewis Feldstein describe some of the diverse locations and most compelling ways in which civic renewal is taking place today. In response to civic crises and local problems, they say, hardworking, committed people are reweaving the social fabric all across America, often in innovative ways that may turn out to be appropriate for the twenty-first century.
What did you think of this book? Tell us!
Blog Post
Presidential Summer Reading
by Eartoground
Apparently The Stranger, by Albert Camus was not the only intellectually challenging book on President Bush's reading list this summer. Adam Gopnik, writing in the Aug. 28 New Yorker, names two others on what he describes as "An amazingly strenuous list, actually." The bonus books were American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and , by Richard Carwardine. Whether Bush has actually read either of these books is unclear to me. But even if he has, that's only three for the summer - two short of the five books required to finish the AADL Summer Reading Game. Better luck next year, Mr. President.
Blog Post
Invasion of the mini-books!
by emilyas
Have you ever wondered what your favorite book would look like in miniature? Well, now's your chance! This Sunday, September 10th, marks the fourth annual Kerrytown BookFest and this year the special guest is the Miniature Book Society (MBS). The festival will be accompanied by lectures, demonstrations and plenty of exhibitors showing and selling books of all kinds. So come to the BookFest and pick up some new, potentially tiny, reading material!
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #32
by muffy
Playwright and actress Pamela Gien was commissioned by Random House to turn her 2001 Obie-Award for Best Play The Syringa Tree into a novel.
Set in her homeland of South Africa during the turbulent 1960s, Gien tells the story of 6 year-old Lizzie, a child of privilege, her Xhosa nanny, Salamina, and their fierce devotion to each other. As the meaning of apartheid unfolds, Lizzie takes her worries to sit in the welcoming arms of the large lilac-blooming syringa tree in her backyard, trying to make sense of the violence, the injustice and racism amidst the intoxicating beauty of the land.
Moving and illuminating, it will interest readers of social issues and modern history.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #31
by muffy
Theodore "Teddy" Ruzak of Knoxville, TN is the bumbling but determined detective in Richard Yancey's entertaining mystery series debut The Highly Effective Detective.
Overweight and unschooled, Teddy quits his job as a night watchman to set up his own detective agency with a small inheritance. For his first case, Teddy is hired to track down a hit-and-run goose-killer. Before long, however, the case turns decidedly homicidal.
Endearing and colorful characters, suspenseful plots twists and witty dialogues make for a fun read. Highly recommended. Starred review in Publishers' Weekly. Definitely for fans of Monk and Columbo series.
Blog Post
'Crocodile Hunter' killed by stingray
by amy
Steve Irwin, the energetic 'Crocodile Hunter' and wildlife warrior, died over the weekend after being stung by a stingray while snorkeling off the Australian coast. Irwin was filming pieces for a show called "Ocean's Deadliest" with Phillipe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau.