edh's reviews
352 reviews

Julie Powell is back... and this time she's chucked Mastering the Art of French Cooking in favor of extracting the internal organs of various animals. Don't forget, she's also cheating on her husband and obsessing about entrails. There's just no end to her versatility - in one book she's a spunky gal downtrodden by a dead-end job but nurturing her soul through food (Julie & Julia) and in the next, she's cleaving a pig head in two with a skil-saw before having gross anonymous sex in a hallway with a stranger and mourning the imminent demise of her marriage while drinking herself to sleep.

This book read like a defiant toddler's response to the image Powell herself created in her first memoir. It's the literary equivalent of a bad breakup haircut - you know you don't really want hot pink highlights, but it's going to prove that you're AWESOME and BOLD and INDEPENDENT MINDED and TOTALLY FREE TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. Beyond the thematic craziness, the pacing was lousy. We spend the first 7/8th of the book following New Badass Julie as she becomes an apprentice butcher worshiping at the altar of meat, then we careen around the world with her as she travels to famous places where she eats supposedly amazing boutique meats and decides what she wants to do with her life, her career, and her marriage. It's just too bad that by that point, caring about Julie has become as tough as a mouthful of badly cut non-organic factory-farmed chicken.

One of the most interesting species available for study is the tween. Although it is not as much fun to actually be this age, the lives of these creatures are nevertheless instructive. And so it goes for Calpurnia Tate, who is nearly twelve years old in 1899. She's busy contemplating both the imminence of the new century and the infinitely changing landscape of her south Texas home. Although her family is well off, and Calpurnia is the only girl among seven children (which means a coveted private bedroom) readers get the feeling that something is missing. When Calpurnia gets up the courage to ask her mysterious grandfather a question, that something missing is found. Although the rest of the family considers the elder Mr. Tate to be a scary individual, Calpurnia finds out that he can be very kind indeed - especially if you ask him about his favorite subject. Grandfather Tate is a naturalist, a founding member of the National Geographic Society, and has carried on a correspondence with the great man himself: Charles Darwin.

As Calpurnia discovers her own passion for observing the natural world, she and Grandfather rather randomly come across a strange form of vetch while touring the Tate property. Grandfather is especially excited, as it might be the holy grail of his life's study... a new species! But while he and Calpurnia are tramping around the fields, the women of the house are plotting to turn Calpurnia from a caterpillar into a butterfly. An accomplished candidate for a debut year does not start her young womanhood up to her elbows in mud and debris, helping her grandfather distill pecan liquor, bending over a microscope, or carrying on a scientific correspondence with the Smithsonian! Determined to convert the budding scientist into a delicate blossom of Southern womanhood, Calpurnia's mother and the house servant Viola take her to task, forcing endless sock knitting and pie baking upon her.

This book is a beautiful exploration of the constraints placed on young women in the early 1900s. Calpurnia may be flunking deportment in school, but Grandfather is the only adult concerned that she has no access to scientific apparatus in school (much less a proper physics curriculum). Calpurnia comes to slowly realize that nobody in her family beyond her grandfather believes that she could go to university; the dream of which becomes her cherished wish even while she watches her oldest brother wastefully reject his chance at higher education in favor of studying attractive young ladies.

Calpurnia's story reads like a guidebook for discovering your own passion, if you happen to be a tweenager. For adults, it's an amazing example of the inspiration you can provide in a child's formative experiences. More than that, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate reminds us that despite generational mutations the greatest human trait remains staying true to one's own self.

Two word review: baby lasagna. Does horror get much better? Top notch authors crafting palm-sized nuggets of gooseflesh... For lovers of Barry Yourgrau, and things that go bump in the broad daylight (because they're zombies!). Only flaw: two too many stories about stuff under beds. Best teaser: a retelling of James' Turn of the Screw that begs you to go find a copy!

Scarier still: that readers might unwisely decide to read these authors' work elsewhere...

Loved this crazy alt-Seattle-history steampunk zombie fest, starring a plucky/determined mother/son pair who must use all their wits to escape. Priest does some great world-building that literally immerses the reader (bring your extra filters, kids, the air isn't fit to breathe) and goes most authors one better by leaving much of the zombie horror offscreen. There's a fair bit of intent listening for a rotter's shuffle than there is gory description, making the story trip along much more like J-horror than a Saw-fest. My YALSA blogging buddy Ken Petrilli has declared it full of crossover appeal. Go tell us if you agree at the YALSA blog.

I'd give this a 3-star rating for personal enjoyment of the topic but a 5-star rating for being an essential historical document of the early 21st century. So a 4-star compromise it is.

Ned Sublette's dramatic crescendo of a book is the culmination of pre-flood NOLA history. His 10 month fellowship at Tulane was during the pregnant pause before Katrina, just prior to the "murdery summer" that gave birth to the fall of a city. If you're not into musicology and serious southern history, this book just isn't going to work for you. Sublette is a professional musician, photographer, and erstwhile academic whose dedication to tracing the unbreakable connections between people's lives and their music. Most enjoyable for the lay reader are Sublette's anecdotes of New Orleans life, and how its inhabitants have traditionally teetered on the edges of danger and desire on both sides of the color line. There's a lot to love in this book, which should really come packaged with a go-cup from Parasol's.

This is my reading reaction I posted to my blog: http://schoolingdotus.blogspot.com

From my last post - this was the only book referred to in the New South Wales matrix that I hadn't yet read. So I set out to grab a copy of How Buildings Learn and discover more about its metaphor for a potential library future.

I think I have always been interested in architecture - take me to any city and I am perfectly happy wandering around to see what I can see in the streetscapes. I knew why I had this interest after a 1997 college guest lecture by James Howard Kunstler. As deeply ashamed as I was at the audience, some of whom booed his talk and belligerently challenged both his ideas and authority in the field, I had a growing sense of excitement and identification. Kunstler was my kind of guy - someone who had figured out that people's relationships with their surroundings profoundly affect their sense of development as a people. "Is this a place worth caring about?" he shouted, showing slides of all-too-familiar suburban landscapes where big box stores held dominion over the horizon and token landscaping replaced once thriving & complex ecosystems. It's no wonder young people feel alienated and isolated, he claimed, pointing to the lack of sidewalks in housing developments and the proliferation of bland "places" that resemble nowhere in particular.

His ideas resonated with me and I was grateful to find the words for things I sensed but was not able to articulate. I found this to be true of Brand's book as well: although one can read this book through the photographs, illustrations, and captions alone, the narrative Brand created is a good one indeed. My favorite reading "moments:"

He quotes from Jane Jacobs on the costs of new construction: "Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must come from old buildings." (p. 28) This quote faces two photos - one of the carriage-style garage where Hewlett-Packard took shape in 1939, and the modest interior of a 1970s garage in Palo Alto where Steves Jobs & Wozniak invented the Apple computer.

In a strange way, libraries are always old buildings because we store the past - we are the metaphoric "old building" that provides a foundation for today's thinkers to build upon.

On p. 188, Brand points out the difference in philosophy of an architect who thinks of a building as a way to manipulate the power structure of those who inhabit it, and the actual inhabitants who will inevitably shape it the way their lives evolve: "A building is not something you finish. A building is something you start."

Libraries are changing organisms just as our users are changing organisms. Our future depends on being flexible, modular, and providing the raw space in which change can flourish.

"Anticipate greater connectivity always."

Beyond being an excellent example of Strunk & White style, this simple declarative sentence is what we should do for our institution as a whole and for the learners that come through our doors. Brand uses this as an introduction to a paragraph on the Berkeley's Wurster Hall conduits, built into the fabric of the building anticipating lots of lovely coaxial cable for television in every classroom. Instead, it proved to be a great way to network computers as the Internet revolution arose. What else could it have connected? Had this empty, "useless" space not been provided, there would have been no opportunity to help the building keep evolving with its inhabitants.

Architecture turns out to have a lot in common with libraries. We deal on a human scale, and help people create places worth caring about, worth inhabiting, and worth growing.

Four pairs enter, but only two emerge from this dark, sleekly modern ghost story. English lovers Robert & Elspeth are parted when she dies of cancer, while her twin sister and husband remain incommunicado in America. Elspeth's twin nieces are left her flat on the promise that they live there for a year, living below neighbors Martin & Marijke. But Marijke flees her husband's OCD for Amsterdam while Martin struggles alone to carry out his ever-increasing rituals.

The story really picks up when the apartment becomes the perimeter of Elspeth's afterlife - she regains consciousness as a ghost, unable to talk to nieces Valentina & Julia, who have moved into her flat and are uncomfortably confronting the prospect of adulthood (which may split them permanently). And when Valentina becomes able to see and communicate with Elspeth, all hell breaks loose as a plan is hatched... a diabolical idea that will test the boundaries of what twosomes could do for love.

Beyond some heavy-handed foreshadowing ("Little Kitten of Death") this is a solid pick for people who are interested in historic graveyards in England, those who love the exploration of relationships (lovers or siblings; you get both), and readers who are interested in the Big Question: what is possible beyond this mortal coil?

Originally posted at the YALSA Blog!

Hunger Games inherits the crazy premises of both Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” and Stephen King’s Bachman novella The Running Man. It’s an unholy marriage to be sure, but the result is compelling, addictive, and relatable for a generation raised on the Survivor television series.

Katniss Everdeen is the sole provider for her family, a sad trio surviving in the remnants of North America (now called Panem) in a district not known for its winners in the annual Hunger Games. The Games are a televised competition designed to rather cruelly remind the Panem residents that their post-apocalyptic rebellion was futile and that their subsistence economies are controlled by the whims of higher classes in the Capitol district. Every year, a lottery-style drawing determines which boy and girl will represent their districts in the Hunger Games, where they will fight to the death: last person standing wins food and favor for their district during the next yearly cycle. Katniss, who has turned to hunting and the black market to feed and clothe her sister and widowed mother, has far more entries in the lottery than usual in her effort to keep her family on the broad edge of survival. Things might be looking up were it not for the drunken lout who is assigned to coach her district’s candidates, and Katniss’ youthful debt (yet to be repaid) to her male counterpart in the Games.

We’re not worried about whether Katniss can survive the Games as, after all, she’s a hunter and survivalist even in normal times. The hook is Katniss’ deep desire to sabotage the Games and teach the Capitol a lesson in class warfare they will never forget. Book groups will find great fodder for discussion in the question of romance in voyeuristic situations, the inequalities that the Capitol inflicts on the Panem residents in the name of keeping order, and the ethics of competition under a microscope a la today’s reality television.

When Henrietta Lacks died in 1951, she didn't take everything with her. The doctors at Johns Hopkins took samples of her cancerous cervical tissue and turned them over to researchers, who discovered their amazing properties - HeLa, as the cells were named, became the first immortal cell line. Samples of the hardy cells were shipped all over the world, and for the first time incredibly advanced scientific research became possible. From the polio vaccine to space exploration to atomic bomb experiments, HeLa cells are seemingly omnipresent in a way Henrietta would never be... especially for her own children.

Henrietta's family was terribly afflicted by her swift and tragic death. They would not know that their mother's cancer had been transformed into an almost magical way to perform experiments and test treatments. Those treatments would be nothing her impoverished family could afford, even in their later years. As the story grows, it becomes ethically thorny and makes the reader confront issues like informed consent, patient confidentiality, the racially segregated medical profession of the 1950s and 60s, and the difference education can make when it comes to health care decisions. The author eventually makes significant contact with Henrietta's youngest surviving daughter, Deborah, and attempts to answer the question that both science, the public, and even Deborah herself find difficult to answer: who was(is) Henrietta Lacks?

It's a highly readable book, a fascinating journey into one private American family's experience with the public face of medicine. The effect that Henrietta's cells have had on science over the last 59 years has literally transformed the limits of knowledge about the human body, yet her family was never compensated for the billion-dollar business that HeLa cell lines drive even to this very day. This is the piece of nonfiction that everyone will be talking about in 2010.

I decided to read this book on my phone using my Kindle app, and it was a great way to take Henrietta's story with me wherever I went... because I could NOT put this book down!

The decisions we make to pursue or maintain an image affect our entire lives, and the lives of our children. Sure, it's a quick way to describe Zevin's new book but the devil sure is in the details... in the late 90s, Pomeroy family scion Roger leaves a comfortable school admin position to go back to college, where he swiftly loses his appetite for learning and begins an affair with his major professor. Wife Georgia is stricken by oldest daughter Helen's demands for a lavish wedding, mounting credit card debt, and the temptation to open yet another account using her oldest son's good record. Meanwhile, Patsy is the youngest kid who has been uprooted by the move to support Roger's schooling, and she finds a bit of romance only to be routed out by her ultra-religious family and shipped off to her grandmother's house to finish out high school.

The story really takes off in act two, when Patsy is basically disowned by Roger and told to find her own way to pay for college (as if the family had extra money floating around!). Patsy's solution is to enlist in the armed forces and finds herself in the desert, having married a high school classmate and now dealing with the demands of a family of her own. The effects of Roger & Georgia's decisions and debt fall crushingly on Patsy, who struggles to climb out of the titular hole that the family has occupied for so long.

While this novel has a lot to say about conservative/Evangelical Christianity, I'd say it's more about larger issues of class and culture in America. These things are intertwined, of course, and have a huge impact on the way we spend money and resources. I think it's a very relevant narrative that will appeal to a wide group of adult (and potentially older teen) audiences, and will spur avid discussion about causes and effects of things like the current recession, consumer debt, the intersection of personal desires and public politics, and the things we are passing on to subsequent generations.