Monday, March 28, 2011

Another bullshit night in Suck City: a memoir



Author: Flynn, Nick, 1960-

Title: Another bullshit night in Suck City: a memoir

Published: New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005

Description: 357 p. :ill. ; 21 cm.

Call Number: PS3556 L894 Z464 2005

Subject(s):
  • Flynn, Nick, 1960-Flynn, Nick, 1960---Family
  • Poets, American--20th century--Biography
  • Poets, American--20th century--Family relationships
  • Homeless persons--Massachusetts--Boston
  • Fathers and sons--Massachusetts--Boston
  • Boston (Mass.)--Biography
Review(s):
  • Foster, Patricia. "Sideswiped." Antioch Review 64, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 810-816
  • "Fathers and Sons." Booklist 102, no. 19/20 (June 2006): 26
  • Gornick, Vivian. "It's All in the Art." Poetry 186, no. 2 (May 2005): 161-164
Read: March 27, 2011

Friday, March 25, 2011

The war that killed Achilles: the true story of Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War



Author: Alexander, Caroline,1956-

Title: The war that killed Achilles: the true story of Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War

Published: New York: Viking, 2009

Description: xix, 296 p. :map ; 24 cm.

Call Number: PA4037 A5955 2009

Bibliography: p. 229-277

Content(s):
  • Landscape of the Trojan War
  • The things they carried
  • Chain of command
  • Terms of engagement
  • Enemy lines
  • Land of my fathers
  • In God we trust
  • Man down
  • No hostages
  • The death of Hektor
  • Everlasting glory
Summary: Many have forgotten that the subject of the "Illiad" was war--not merely the poetical romance of the war at Troy, but war, in all its enduring devastation. This groundbreaking reading of Homer’s epic poem restores the poet’s vision of the tragedy of war, addressing many of the central questions that define the war experience of every age

Subject(s):
  • Homer. Iliad
  • War in literature
  • Trojan War -- Literature and the war
  • Achilles (Greek mythology)
Review(s):
  • Cooksey, T. L. "The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War." Library Journal 134, no. 18 (November 2009): 66
  • STEVE, COATES. "Where Men Won Glory." New York Times Book Review (October 18, 2009): 16
  • Taylor, Gilbert. "The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War." Booklist 106, no. 3 (October 2009): 16
Read: March 25, 2011

Monday, March 21, 2011

Vietnamerica: a family's journey



Author: Tran, G. B.(Gia-Bao), 1976-

Title: Vietnamerica: a family’s journey

Published: New York: Villard Books, 2010

Description: [279] p. :chiefly col. ill. ;  24 cm.

Call Number: E184 V53 T73 2010

Summary: A memoir in graphic novel format about the author’s experiences as the son of Vietnamese immigrants who fled to America during the fall of Saigon describes how he learned his tragic ancestral history and the impact of the Vietnam War on his family while visiting their homeland years later

Subject(s):
  • Tran, G. B. (Gia-Bao), 1976- -- Comic books, strips, etc
  • Tran, G. B. (Gia-Bao), 1976- -- Family -- Comic books, strips, etc
  • Vietnamese Americans -- Biography -- Comic books, strips, etc
  • Refugees -- Vietnam -- Biography -- Comic books, strips, etc
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Refugees -- Biography -- Comic books, strips, etc
Review(s):
  • Cornog, Martha. "Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey." Library Journal 136, no. 1 (January 2011): 71-72
  • "Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey." Publishers Weekly 257, no. 47 (November 29, 2010): 36
Read: March 19, 2011

The man who loved books too much: the true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession



Author: Bartlett, Allison Hoover

Title: The man who loved books too much: the true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession

Published: New York: Riverhead Books, 2009

Description: 274 p. ; 22 cm.

Call Number: Z992.8 B37 2009

Bibliography: p. 264-274

Summary: Unrepentant book thief John Charles Gilkey has stolen a fortune in rare books from around the country. Yet unlike most thieves who steal for profit, Gilkey steals for love-the love of books. Perhaps equally obsessive is Ken Sanders, the self-appointed "bibliodick" who's driven to catch him. Following this eccentric cat-and-mouse chase with a mixture of suspense, insight and humor, Allison Hoover Bartlett plunges the reader deep into a rich world of fanatical book lust and considers what it is that makes some people stop at nothing to posses the titles they love

Subject(s):
  • Gilkey, John, 1968-
  • Sanders, Ken, 1951-
  • Book collectors -- United States -- Biography
  • Thieves -- United States -- Biography
  • Book collecting
  • Bibliomania
  • Book thefts
Review(s):
  • Cox, Richard J. "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession." Library & Archival Security 23, no. 1 (January 2010): 49-51
  • Katona, Cynthia Lee. "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession." Magill Book Reviews (November 2009)
  • CHRISTOPHER R., BEHA. "The Book Thief." New York Times Book Review (October 4, 2009): 20
Read: March 15, 2011

Sydney, cipher and search: solving the last great naval mystery of the Second World War



Author: Hore, Peter

Title: Sydney, cipher and search: solving the last great naval mystery of the Second World War

Published: Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009

Description: 314 p. :ill. (some col.) ;  22 cm.

Call Number: D775.5 S8 H67 2009
 
Bibliography: p. 299-303

Summary: In November 1941 the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, with a crew of 645, disappeared off the coast western Australia. Shipwrecked German sailors told an incredible tale of how their ship, had sunk the pride of the Australian navy. Almost at once conspiracy theories sprang up to explain the tragic loss of the ship and so many lives. Based on the author's decryption and interpretation of German Coded accounts, interviews with survivors from the raider, Kormoran, and other research, this book tells - insofar as it can ever be known - what really happened in the desperate fight to the death between the two ships, whose wrecks were finally located in March 2008

Subject(s):
  • Sydney (Cruiser)
  • World War, 1939-1945 -- Naval operations, Australian
Review(s):
  • Higham, Robin. "Sydney, Cipher and Search: Solving the Last Great Naval Mystery of the Second World War." Journal of Military History 74, no. 1 (January 2010): 287
Read: March 12, 2011

Beat to quarters



Author: Forester, C. S. (Cecil Scott), 1899-1966

Title: Beat to quarters

Published: Boston: Back Bay Books, 1999

Description: viii, 273 p. ; 21 cm.

Call Number: PR6011 O56 B4 1999

Summary: June 1808, somewhere west of Nicaragua-a site suitable for spectacular sea battles. The Admiralty has ordered Captain Horatio Hornblower, now in command of the thirty-six-gun HMS Lydia, to form an alliance against the Spanish colonial government with an insane Spanish landowner; to find a water route across the Central American isthmus; and "to take, sink, burn or destroy" the fifty-gun Spanish ship of the line Natividad or face court-martial. A daunting enough set of orders-even if the happily married captain were not woefully distracted by the passenger he is obliged to take on in Panama: Lady Barbara Wellesley

Subject(s):
  • Hornblower, Horatio (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
  • Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 19th century -- Fiction
  • Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Fiction
  • Sea stories
  • War stories
Review(s):
  • Grainger, John D. "Who Was Hornblower?." History Today 49, no. 10 (October 1999): 32
  • Forester, C. S. "HORNBLOWER AND I." Saturday Evening Post 229, no. 45 (May 11, 1957): 27-141
Read: March 12, 2011

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Endgame: Bobby Fischer's remarkable rise and fall-- from America's brightest prodigy to the edge of madness

 

Author: Brady, Frank, 1934-

Title: Endgame: Bobby Fischer's remarkable rise and fall from America's brightest prodigy to the edge of madness

Published: New York: Crown, 2011

Description: xi, 402 p., [8] p. of plates :ill., ports. ; 25 cm.

Call Number: GV1439 F5 B68 2011

Bibliography: p. 379-384

Content(s):
  • Loneliness to passion
  • Childhood obsession
  • Out of the heasd of Zeus
  • The American wunderkind
  • The Cold War gladiator
  • The new Fischer
  • Einstein's theory
  • Legends clash
  • The candidate
  • The champion
  • The wilderness years
  • Fischer-Spassky redux
  • Crossing borders
  • Arrest and rescue
  • Living and dying in Iceland
Summary: From an author who wrote one of the bestselling Bobby Fischer books ever and who was himself a friend of Fischer's comes an impressively researched biography that for the first time captures the complete, remarkable arc of the life of the chess master

Subject(s):
  • Fischer, Bobby, 1943-2008
  • Chess players -- United States -- Biography
  • Chess -- Collections of games
 Review(s):
  • Lewis, Leslie. "Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall--from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness." Library Journal 136, no. 3 (February 15, 2011): 117
  • DYLAN LOEB, McCLAIN. "Solving Bobby Fischer." New York Times Book Review (February 13, 2011): 24
  • Pitt, David. "Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall-from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness." Booklist 107, no. 9/10 (January 2011): 34
Read: March 6, 2011

Troll: a love story

 

Author: Sinisalo, Johanna, 1958-

Title: Troll: a love story

Published: New York: Grove Press, 2003

Description: 278 p. ; 22 cm.

Call Number: PH355 S5445 S46 2003

Note(s): Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas; previously published: Not before sundown. London: Peter Owen, 2003

Subject(s):
  • Trolls -- Finland -- Fiction
  • Gay men -- Finland -- Fiction
  • Aphrodisiacs -- Finland -- Fiction
  • Fantasy fiction
Review(s):
  • Sallis, James. "Life/Troll: A Love Story/Camouflage." Fantasy & Science Fiction 109, no. 6 (December 2005): 38-43
  • "TROLL: A Love Story (Book)." Publishers Weekly 251, no. 15 (April 12, 2004): 37
  • "TROLL: A Love Story (Book)." Kirkus Reviews 72, no. 7 (April 2004): 295-296
Read: March 5, 2011

Negotiating with the dead: a writer on writing

 

Author: Atwood, Margaret, 1939-

Title: Negotiating with the dead: a writer on writing

Published: New York: Anchor Books, 2003

Description: xxvii, 219 p. ; 21 cm.

Call Number: PR9199.3 A8 N44 2003

Bibliography: p. 197-207

Subject(s):
  • Atwood, Margaret Eleanor, 1939-
  • Fiction -- Authorship
  • Authorship
Review(s):
  • Ingersoll, Earl G. "Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (Book)." Studies in the Novel 36, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 126-128
  • St. Andrews, B. A. "Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (Book)." World Literature Today 77, no. 3/4 (October 2003): 99-100
  • Irvine, Larna. "Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (Book)." American Review of Canadian Studies 33, no. 3 (September 2003): 433-435
Read: March 2, 2011