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The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008

by cecile

The Old Gray Lady has covered all these events and more:

Lincoln’s assassination, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, WW I, the Normandy Invasion, the Titanic disaster, Watergate, and 9/11.

If you give this book to a history buff you may never see him or her again. About 300 of the most momentous front pages are printed in this mammoth book. Also included are 3 very user friendly DVDs that cover every single front page through 2008.

If you don't ever hear from me again you'll know what happened.

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Culture of Struggle, Culture of Faith: A Juneteenth Event Featuring LaRon Williams

by shannon riffe

Join celebrated storyteller LaRon Williams at Traverwood on Friday June 19 at 6pm as he commemorates Juneteenth, the oldest celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the U.S. Browse our collection of Juneteenth books here, including Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth, which deals with the holiday and its traditions.

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #164

by muffy

At the heart of Enrique Joven's gripping debut (translated from the Spanish) The Book of God and Physics* is the Voynich Manuscript - a puzzling document that has fascinated generations of cryptologists both amateur and professional with its odd drawings and strange text, as yet undeciphered.

This 500 year-old oddity found its way to the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where a Jesuit physics teacher and two resourceful collaborators try to pierce the mystery, including the possible murder of a well-known scientist. The Church, on the other hand, seems to be going to great lengths to keep the book's meaning hidden.

"Joven's sophisticated perspective indeed opens insights into the current controversy pitting Darwinism against intelligent design. A book to delight lovers of well-crafted fiction and well-anchored fact." ~ Booklist

Debut author Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane deals with yet another archival puzzler connected to the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history - the Salem witch trials. Fan of Matthew Pearl would find themselves two new authors to watch.

* = Starred review

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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas on DVD

by manz

Based on John Boyne’s best selling novel of the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas centers on 8yr old Bruno. Set during WWII, he has to leave his friends and move with his family to the countryside, where his father will be the commandant of a concentration camp. Bruno is bored and wishes for nothing more than to find children to play with and explore and have amazing adventures. One day he spots a young boy, wearing “striped pajamas,” on the other side of the fence. He soon befriends the Jewish lad and doesn’t quite understand what happens on the other side of the fence or why his friend Schmuel can’t just come over and play.

This is an amazing film that focuses on the naiveté and innocence of a youth such as Bruno during a horrific time in history. The unfolding truth and horrific consequences of such a story really leave you breathless.

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We Remember

by cecile

The 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy known as Operation Overlord is June 6th, 2009.

The sheer size of the invasion and the planning involved will astound you. If you want to learn more about D-Day and the beginning of the end for the Nazis, here are some great books and movies. All are available at the Ann Arbor District Library.

BOOKS
Decision in Normandy by Carlo D’Este (one of the best), The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan (made into a great movie, too), D-Day : 6 June 1944, The Normandy Landings by Richard Collier, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life also written by D’Este, The Americans at Normandy by John McManus, Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose and finally, Beyond Band of Brothers written by Colonel Dick Winters who led Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division.

FILMS
The Longest Day—epic with every 1960s movie star, Band of Brothers the HBO series about the 101st Airborne division, Saving Private Ryan a labor of love by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, D-Day In Color and D-Day: The Total Story.

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One of History's Mysteries Solved?

by cecile

Who has been buried in Berlin’s Freidrichsfelde Cemetery all this time? Rosa Luxemburg? Not so, according to Michael Tsokos, a pathologist at Berlin’s Charite Hospital. He told Der Spiegel that an unidentified corpse found in the basement of a Berlin hospital is most likely her.

Rosa Luxemburg, a revolutionary hero to many, helped to found the Communist Party in both Poland and Germany. Highly educated with a doctorate in both law and politics, she became a Marxist who advocated for violent revolution to achieve socialism in Germany. She fought against more moderate factions that thought their aims could be achieved through trade union activities and political action.

Murdered by German soldiers for her revolutionary writings and activities in 1919, her grave has become a place of pilgrimage for communists, feminists and left-wing activists. The body that was originally interred doesn’t match her physical characteristics according to the post mortem exam. The body found by Mr. Tsokos does, but he can’t confirm it until he can do a DNA comparison, and so he is searching for DNA samples.

Learn about this fascinating figure in history with Etzbieta Ettinger’s book Rosa Luxemburg: A Life and Rosa a film by Maregarethe von Trotta, the German film director.

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Bonnie and Clyde

by cecile

Recently, two new books came out about Bonnie and Clyde Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn and Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend by Paul Schneider.

Jeff Guinn had access to Barrow and Parker family materials that haven’t come to light before. If you have an interest in Bonnie and Clyde, read this book.

During the Great Depression years 1931-34, Bonnie and Clyde kept newspapers alive with their crime wave. Bank robberies yes, but mainly they robbed Mom & Pop stores for $5 or $10 at a time. Clyde liked to steal cars with V-8 engines and knew that law enforcement (often in their own dilapidated vehicles that couldn’t keep up) couldn’t pursue them across county and state lines. The V-8 engine and the fact that Clyde robbed state armories and stole guns more powerful than what local law enforcement had kept them ahead of the law.

The story of their upbringing describes unbelievable poverty. When Clyde’s family moved to Dallas they lived under their wagon for two years because they couldn’t afford to build or move into a shack. This doesn’t ameliorate their decision to commit crimes, but paints a graphic picture of a reason for embarking on a life of crime.

The Schneider book has some problems. I couldn’t finish it because it has an annoying narrative style. While fact based, the book supposes what Clyde and Bonnie were thinking and saying to each other. A scrap of a fact is turned into long-winded supposition. This is an annoying trend appearing more and more again in new non-fiction—please stop the madness.

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Memorial Day

by aschling

It's almost Memorial Day, and time to remember the men and women of the military that died serving their country. Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day because of the decorating of graves that took place on this day after the Civil War. The Flag will be flown at half staff until noon and there is a "National Moment of Remembrance" at 3pm. If you wish to acknowledge this moment it is asked that activities are paused to remember the day in silence or listening to "Taps". If you are interested in reading more about Memorial Day the library has the book Memorial Day : (decoration day) : its celebration, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a non-sectional anthology of the civil war and Memorial Day.

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Mr. Otis Don't Let Us Down!

by cecile

Elisha Otis invented the safety elevator in 1852, a steam-powered behemoth I thought of last week while experiencing a bit of a scary ride going to the fourth floor here at the downtown library.

Read about him and other American inventors in They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine.

Mr. Otis invented the escalator too and built a huge company that installed elevators in the Eiffel Tower, the London Underground, the Kremlin, Balmoral Castle, the Washington Monument, the Flatiron Building, the Empire State Building, highly specialized installations for NASA and the Statute of Liberty.

With all that ingenuity and dedication to service the Otis Elevator Company is known for, it just can't be curtains for our little elevator, can it?

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160 acres for free

by Maxine

No, not today, unfortunately. Would that it were so! On May 20, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed The Homestead Act. If settlers paid $10 and agreed to live on a piece of land for five years, they were given 160 acres for free. By 1900, homesteaders had claimed 80 million acres. The parents of novelist Willa Cather and children's book author Laura Ingalls Wilder both took advantage of the offer, moving to Nebraska and North Dakota. To find out more about how the act affected the settlement of the West, check out some of the Library's books on westward expansion as well as Cather's luminous descriptions of the Old West and Wilder's portraits of a loving family.